Daily Writing Challenge

F-19

I went to the Writing dot Com Tools tab and asked for a writing prompt. Here's what I got.

You placed an order, but the item shipped isn't what you wanted. Instead it's...

So here I go...

My wife has trouble getting out of the house so I got her a virtual zoo membership and that means she has access to critter cams from zoos all over the world. She can take pictures and just watch the animals in real time. So it is like visiting a zoo without having to get out. The thing of it is that the thing she likes best about visiting a zoo is buying a souvenir of her favorite animal in the visit. So to help with that I have been buying her stuffies of the animals she has taken pictures of. She has two whole shelves full in our bedroom. The thing of it is that it is not always easy to get what I am looking for. I had to really search for a cassowary. Though I had too easy of a time finding a capybara, so she ended up picking two. One realistic one and one that is wearing a backpack. Ultimately those were pretty easy to find. What got difficult was the grizzly bear. Most of the sellers on amazon were pretty high. I found one that seemed reasonable. I ordered the grizzly bear and a platypus from that seller. What I received was nothing anywhere near what I ordered. Instead of a grizzly bear worth thirty five dollars we received a dollar tree type puppy stuffie. Instead of the platypus we received a cheap pony in a purse. I had to return them and wait for refunds to try to reorder them. The grizzly bear ended up costing forty dollars. The platypus actually ended up being a couple dollars cheaper. They got to me faster the second time around too.

Tapped out on that prompt. I am going to ask for another one. Here we go.

An explorer leaps from a waterfall into a hidden cavern, seeking a world unknown.

He had searched for weeks following every clue on the map. Now he was fifty feet from where X would mark the spot. The trouble was that X was fifty feet down in a pool from a waterfall. It would be days travel to get down there the safe route. He contemplated his options. Then he plugged his nose and jumped. It was almost a very bad idea. He had a lot of gear and it took a lot of extra effort to come to the surface. He surfaced behind the waterfall and struggled up onto the ledge he found. It was more than a ledge. It was the opening to a cave. He shrugged out of his wet pack and set it down. He dug through it and found his flashlight. Then he headed into the cave to see what he could find. This was likely the X on the map. The cave got really dark pretty quickly, narrowing a great deal. He had to turn on his flashlight. Down the tunnel there was not much to see. strangely it seemed like the tunnel was getting light again, a distinctly greenish light. Soon he was able to turn off his flashlight it was so bright. With the flashlight off it was easier to see that the light was coming from pale green growths on the walls and ceiling of the tunnel. That and the tunnel was widening. Around a bend in the tunnel he came in to a cavern brilliantly lit by the phosphorescent growths, and at the center of the cavern stood a temple like structure.