sentence prompt:
The world ends during the LEGO race.
first sentence prompt game
The world ends during the LEGO race.
The heat in Miami is unbearable in the way only Miami can be: bright, heavy, sun sitting so close it feels personal. The track shimmers. The LEGO cars look ridiculous, shiny little blocks baking under the glare. But no one cares.
Carlos can’t stop laughing. His face hurts from it, his throat’s raw. Alex is behind him in the blue Williams, knees jammed into his spine, cackling like a man possessed. They’ve been bumping into other cars for half a lap, and Carlos is sure there’s a trail of loose LEGO bricks behind them like breadcrumbs.
Ahead, the McLaren rattles and swerves, papaya and loud. Lando is screaming at George again and again—“Geeeeooorgeee!”—and George, beside them in the silver car, just shouts back, “Racing incident!” Kimi in the back seat filming everything, shaking so hard with laughter the camera wobbles.
It’s so stupid Carlos can’t breathe for laughing.
He’s sweating through his shirt, the plastic steering wheel slipping in his hands, the air thick and sweet with sunscreen and exhaust. It shouldn’t feel like this, but it does like something uncoils inside him. Like he remembers why he ever loved this. The noise, the heat, the stupid competition of it.
Alex leans forward, practically yelling in his ear. “Go past the McLaren!”
“They are blocking!”
“Hit them then! They hit us first!”
“You want me to hit Lando?”
“Yes! Do it for the honour of Williams!”
Carlos laughs so hard he nearly misses the turn. “You are insane, Albono!”
“Insanely competitive!”
Plastic rattles under them. LEGO bits scatter across the track. The marshals will hate them, but who cares. The stands are a wall of noise: cheering, waving, flags catching sunlight. It’s chaos. Glorious, harmless chaos.
And then Oscar turns around. Just briefly. Just enough that Carlos catches it.
That grin. Wide and sudden and alive, his face flushed from heat and laughter. It hits Carlos like a wave, fast and impossible. He’s seen Oscar smile before, but never like that—not on track, not under the sun, not at all. He knows that face with drawn eyebrows when he's frustrated, knows the awkward grin when Oscar is leaving his hotel room in the morning and knows how his eyes almost roll back when he has his hand wrapped around his dick and Oscar's orgasm hits.
But this particular smile...It’s real.
It’s beautiful.
Alex is still yelling. “Go, go! Catch him! You can’t let McLaren win this, come on!”
Carlos grits his teeth, mock-serious. “I am catching him.”
“You’re not catching him! You’re—” Alex points. “You’re daydreaming!”
“I am not!”
“Sure,” Alex says, teasing. “You’re driving like you’re in love with the guy.”
And Carlos, not thinking, not even processing, says, “I am not in love. We only fucked!”
It’s instinct. Just words. A stupid, thoughtless reflex that slips out between the laughter and the heat. He hears it the second it leaves his mouth. And he wishes he could swallow it back down.
Alex goes very still. The air shifts.
And then—
The world stops.
Just—stops.
The roar of the crowd disappears like someone pulled a plug. The sunlight feels wrong, too clean. The air collapses into silence so absolute Carlos feels it in his teeth. Every flag, every sign, every waving hand...gone. The grandstands are empty. The banners hang loose in the heat. Pieces of confetti fall in slow motion, quiet as ash.
He blinks once. Twice. The wheel’s still in his hands, but he’s not sure if the car’s moving.
Alex whispers, “Carlos?”
Carlos doesn’t answer. He’s staring at the seats, at the impossible blankness.
Then, slowly, the McLaren in front of them coasts to a stop. The silver car behind them too. Around the track, every bright plastic vehicle comes to rest. The world is a photograph.
Oscar climbs out first, turns a full circle, confusion written across his face. “What—where—where is everyone?”
George’s voice cuts through the still air: “Everyone stay calm.”
“Stay calm?” Jack shouts from somewhere. “Where the hell did they go?”
Kimi's muttering, scrolling through his phone. “I cannot call anyone. All my contacts—deleted. Everything’s gone except for you guys.”
Alex is breathing too fast, hand clutching the side of the car. “This is a dream. I’m dreaming. This can’t—this can’t be real.”
The silence hums. The heat presses down. Somewhere, a piece of plastic creaks.
Carlos’s heartbeat feels too loud. The words he said—still echoing in his head like a slap. We only fucked. It was one second of noise, and now—this.
He looks at the empty stands, the flags still drooping over the seats, and thinks, I did this.
It’s insane. But it fits. In the same way superstition always fits. The timing perfect, the punishment absurd.
He doesn’t say anything. He just stands there, staring, guilt rising like static. His throat feels dry. He had promised not to tell anyone.
Alex grabs his arm. “Carlos. Tell me you’re seeing this too.”
He nods slowly.
The others are shouting now, scattering, calling names into the silence. Nothing answers. The air is so still it feels artificial. The city beyond the barriers looks frozen, too.
Carlos keeps staring at the empty grandstand. He can still picture the crowd that was there—a blur of faces, colour, movement. The flags waving, the heat, the noise.
Gone in one blink.
His stomach twists. It’s because I said it. It’s because I told someone.
He doesn’t say it aloud. He just presses his hands against the side of the LEGO car, staring down at the sunlit plastic, breathing too fast as well.
Oscar’s voice floats back from the middle of the track, low and shaky. “Someone tell me this is a prank.”
No one does.
Carlos looks up, eyes finding him again—small against the wide, empty stands, the sun making the edge of his hair glow. Alive. Thank god, alive.
He swallows hard, guilt sitting cold in his stomach.
The world has gone still, and all he can think is: I said it out loud. And now everyone else is gone.
