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Ben Ralios

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jun, 2024

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5 Stories

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Say It Right.

Weekly Contest #369

Mum is standing in the kitchen with the phone pressed so hard against her ear the screen has left a white mark on her cheek. "You mean everything to her, Mum. You know that."  In the next room, Rita's asleep, fists curled by her ears. You sit on the windowsill. The sea has reached the road. Yesterday you could still see the tops of the street signs. Now there's only water, flat and dark and moving in a way that water in a street shouldn't move, and somewhere underneath it is the Khaliqis' letterbox, and the little pa...

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June

Every evening, just after the sun dipped behind the trees and turned the lake turned the colour of copper, Liam sat at the edge of the dock, his toes skimming calm waters. The wood beneath him creaked like it resented his presence, or maybe it just shared his yearning. Across the lake stood the house. That same house with peeling purple porch railings, chipped off-white trim, and a cracked, red bricked chimney that somehow was still standing at the impossible angle it was.Every night, at least before it all went down, the lights would flicke...

1 like 1 comment 1
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The Odd One Out

The bus engine hummed beneath him like a living thing.Jamie blinked. His head throbbed with pain. Cold sweat clung to his neck and chest.The bus interior flickered with the passing streetlights, long blinks of light and dark.He didn’t know where he was.Or how he’d gotten here.The seats were full. Every person sat eerily still, facing forward. Silent.Outside, nothing but pitch-black forest slid by in a blur.Jamie leaned into the aisle, looking around. “Hey… what stop is this?”No one responded.Then someone behind him spoke. Cheerfully.“Still a...

1 like 3 comments 3
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Midnight

The clock struck midnight, and the world held its breath.So did Nora.She sat alone in her little apartment, snuggled up on the couch with a blanket wrapped tightly around her shoulders. The TV hummed quietly in the background, some late-night talk show host cracking jokes to a crowd of no one. But Nora wasn't paying attention.She was staring at the door.Because someone had just knocked.One firm, sharp knock. And then nothing.Her heart pounded in her ears. Midnight was not visitor hours, especially when you lived alone in a building where no ...

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WANTED:

This was third time I’d seen an article promising money for me or any information about me. I didn’t want to kill people anymore, I just wanted to live a normal life. Before I was the the hunter. Now, the hunter is being hunted.I walked to the train station today, normally I took a bus till there. I couldn’t get a car because they would find out my identity. I had to move houses three times because neighbors got suspicious.I thought about my wife and kids during the calm train ride to the office, I wondered how long I would be on the run and...

1 like 3 comments 3
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