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Carla Marquez

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2025

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22 Followers
19 Following

6 Stories

167 karma pts

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What the Forest Wants

Weekly Contest #329

Each bump of the road sent pain clawing through my lower back. The heating pad buzzed against me like a dying insect, useless against the cramps that had dug their hooks in deep. I shifted in the passenger seat, hunting for comfort in Ryan’s 2001 Hyundai, but there was none — not with the backseat suffocating under tents, tarps, and enough trail mix to feed an army.“Almost there,” Ryan said when I asked, though his voice bent with irritation. Out of half-closed eyes, I watched him stab at the screen of his phone. The map glitched, the car ic...

11 likes 4 comments 4
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Las Catrinas

Weekly Contest #326

Their laughter came before they did. It was sharp and foreign against the hush of candles and prayer. He felt it ricochet off the stone walls and rush back at them, making him wince at its harshness. But the light here was perfect, gold leaking out of every flame, glowing even with the sun still in the sky, so he didn’t give it a second thought.Locals looked up at them, their prayers unbroken, unfaltering, as they watched them enter. For a brief moment, he thought he heard their voices in the wax dripping and petals shifting beneath his feet...

18 likes 5 comments 5
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La Hacienda

Weekly Contest #325

When the layoffs came, they arrived like a sickness spreading through the country. Entire departments gone overnight, entire futures rewritten in an email that began with, ‘We regret to inform you.’I was one of those who had been regrettably informed.I had built my life around that job, the title beneath my name, the proof that I’d made something of myself. That all the sacrifices my family had made by leaving Mexico were worth it.Then, in one morning, it was gone.My abuela came to stay with me when she found out, saying I needed company, th...

14 likes 5 comments 5
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The First Keeper

Weekly Contest #319

Mother died that winter. She had given us every last morsel from her own mouth, though there was little to give. Her body grew thin and brittle as frost, and one morning she did not wake. Father had not returned from the war. He had promised he would be home before the first snowfall, but as the snow buried our town in white, we knew the battles with the Shadow Beings still raged far away.Tristan and I stayed, waiting for him, even as the other villagers fled toward warmer and safer places.I rationed what little remained, but I was a child w...

11 likes 9 comments 9
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The Secret I Feed

Weekly Contest #316

At first, Gavin was uncomfortable with the attention he was receiving. He’d run from the cameras, hide from the growing crowd of fans waiting outside, and refused all requests for interviews.Now he thrived under the spotlight.He stopped for photos, signed autographs, and spoke at schools. Encouraging the young minds, consoling the desolate and grieving, and winning his way into the hearts of everyone who saw him solve another case that no one else could.He was a new type of celebrity. A new type of Hero.One that was sorely needed in modern t...

12 likes 4 comments 4
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Every Dream is a Theft

Weekly Contest #314

Three months after the funeral, I started dreaming of him. He was there, in the living room, wearing his sunglasses inside, his favorite ones with the blue-green chrome lenses that matched his neon sneakers, and a band tee that was just one size too small, though he would argue it was the perfect size or it shrank in the dryer. “Take me down to the paradise city…” He was singing and dancing like he would when I was a kid: his feet moving to one rhythm while his arms danced to another. My chest ached with something between joy and sorrow. For...

22 likes 3 comments 3
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