Menu

More apps built by Reedsy

Assemble a team of professionals

The writing app for authors

Writing courses, events and memberships

Get your book reviewed

Weekly writing prompts and contests

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog

Daniel P. Douglas

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2024

Stories
Comments
Library
94 Followers
75 Following

29 Stories

1000 karma pts

?

The Spook Who Sleuths: Case of the Immortal Curse

Weekly Contest #295

RAIN DRUMMED AGAINST my office window like a junkie’s fingers on a pawnshop counter. I nursed a ghostly approximation of bourbon—can’t taste the stuff anymore, but old habits haunt you just like, well, ghosts.Name’s Roxie Hart, supernatural P.I. extraordinaire. Been dead since ‘45 after I zigged when I shoulda zagged during a particularly dicey OSS operation near Berlin. Now I solve the cases that leave the living scratching their noggins.My door creaked open—I keep it that way on purpose, good for the atmosphere—and in stumbled a fella look...

6 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Polar Arcadia

Weekly Contest #294

THE SHUTTLE WINDOWS frosted over as Jack Graves made his final approach to Arcadia's dome. Its perfect hemisphere stood stark white against the endless black sky and blue-silver ice of the polar landscape. No stars penetrated the atmospheric haze—just the distant sun hanging low on the horizon, casting long shadows across glacial plains.The landing pad extended from Arcadia’s southern edge, a metal arm reaching into the wilderness. Graves guided his shuttle down, its landing struts compressing with a groan as they accepted the vessel’s weigh...

6 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

Seeds of Deception

Weekly Contest #293

THE SHUTTLE rattled through Ganymede’s upper atmosphere, metal hull protesting as super-heated oxygen scorched the exterior plating. In the economy cabin, Zeph Garner gripped his armrests, counting seconds until the shaking stopped. Atmospheric entry ranked as his least favorite part of interplanetary travel, though the statistics assured passengers this constituted the safest era of space flight in human history. Statistics provided cold comfort when you felt your atoms might separate at any moment. The turbulence subsided as the craft push...

6 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

The Water Finder

Weekly Contest #291

SOREN FELT the water first—a deep reservoir, ancient and untouched, thrumming like a bass note beneath the settlement. The vibration started in his chest and spread upward, building pressure behind his eyes until he tasted metal on his tongue. He broke the connection immediately, his hands trembling as he steadied himself against the hull of his crashed ship. Three miles down, at least. Too deep for this settlement’s equipment, and far too deep for him to sense without consequences. “Find anything interesting?” The voice belonged to Elara, t...

8 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

The Humanity Protocol

Weekly Contest #290

Dr. Conrad Huber regulated the neural suppression field while studying the developing embryos. Each sphere beat with a soft blue light, synchronized to the frequency that would guarantee emotional stability in the final products. The latest batch—Series 2157—stood out as his most efficient. He made a note on his tablet, recording subtle improvements in genetic sequencing that would mitigate the chances of deviation. One embryo flickered with an irregular pattern, drawing his attention. As he leaned closer, the light caught his reflection in ...

7 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Live, Die, Repeat

Weekly Contest #289

“The room is unfamiliar. I don't know how I got here.”The hospital room’s antiseptic scent masked deeper notes of mortality. Medicines, decay, and the essence of ambition's final hours lingered in the air. Through dissolving consciousness came mechanical sounds, oxygen hiss and morphine drips creating a requiem of medical machinery. No family waited at his bedside. No prayers accompanied his passing.“Where am I?”Somewhere distant, a nurse dropped a metal tray. The crash expanded outward, each wave carrying fragments of unraveling awareness. ...

7 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

The Great Space Coffee Caper

Weekly Contest #288

The Federation designed the FDV Perfect Blend Mediator-class diplomatic vessel for complex negotiations and first contact scenarios. This ship, commanded by Captain Penumbra Luna, and others like it, had a reputation throughout the galaxy for their extensive conference facilities, cultural exchange centers, and ability to host and serve multiple diplomatic delegations with only the best roasted coffees. Their motto: “Where Differences Dissolve Like Sugar in a Well-Stirred Cup.” An annoying klaxon on the Perfect Blend’s bridge announced a thr...

9 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

Cupped Before Us

Weekly Contest #287

A raw November morning in 1742 and a distressed visitor, Miss Eleanor Whitmore, greeted Sarah Hampton as she began her work in Williamsburg’s Blue Anchor Tavern. Sarah, daughter of the tavern keeper, gathered tea service for her weary guest with innate respect and diligence.Miss Whitmore sat with misplaced London sophistication in an empty dining room of this colonial tavern. Morning sunbeams peeked from behind low, dark clouds and shone through a small window, casting dim illumination across the scarred oak table where Miss Whitmore sat.&nb...

5 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Preacher Man

Weekly Contest #286

THE MORNING I stole my daddy’s gun, the summer heat had already baked the dew off the grass. I remember the metal felt warm when I wrapped it in my mother’s old shawl—the blue one she’d worn to church every Sunday before the preacher man came to town. Before Jenny disappeared. Before we stopped going to church altogether. Daddy kept the Colt in his bedside drawer, loaded with five shells, one chamber empty. “Safety first,” he always said, though safety seemed a strange word for a weapon that had taken three men’s lives during his days as a d...

9 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

A Commodore 64’s Last Stand

Weekly Contest #285

The fluorescent lights of the National Technology Museum’s acquisitions room buzzed like a chorus of judgmental crickets. I’d been sitting there for three hours and seventeen minutes. Being a computer, counting—like hours and minutes—was just something I did. Like breathing, except I didn’t breathe. And at that moment, I was trying very hard not to count the number of times this alleged “tech expert” had checked his ridiculous smartwatch. Twenty-seven! He had checked it twenty-seven times! “Next candidate,” Professor Plug-and-Play called out...

7 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

We Make Magic

Weekly Contest #284

The Bringer of Late Frosts and Freezes lounged on his favorite cloud, watching mortals scurry about below like ants preparing for winter. Zerio—for that was his proper name, though few bothered to use it—twirled an icicle between his fingers, its crystalline surface catching the afternoon sun. His latest masterpiece of meteorological mayhem had turned three counties' worth of spring flowers into frost-bitten disappointments. "I leave you alone up here and now you're brooding again," a firm, warm voice called from behind. "I should've known b...

6 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

The Stage Stop

Weekly Contest #282

Thomas Cooper pressed his forehead against the cold panes of the front window, watching snowflakes swirl in the gathering dusk. The glass held the bite of Wyoming Territory’s fierce spring weather, but he welcomed the chill - it kept him alert as he studied the road where it emerged from Carter’s Pass. From his favorite perch in the window seat, cushioned by his mother’s patchwork pillows, he could see half a mile down the road. He’d watched the same view every evening for thirteen years, ever since his parents had taken over Last Creek Stag...

8 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

The Spook Who Sleuths

Weekly Contest #272

My office was darker than FDR’s fireside chats and twice as smoky. That’s how I like it—keeps the clients on their toes and the spirits at bay. Name’s Roxie Hart, and I’m what you might call a supernatural tomfoolery private dick. Some folks get their knickers in a twist over that last word, but in my line of work, you gotta call a spade a spade and a detective a dick. I kicked back in my chair, feet up on the desk, pondering life’s great mysteries. Like why dames always fall for the wrong guy, or how Spam manages to be both a wartime delica...

27 likes 13 comments 13
Read story

The Magical Misfire

Weekly Contest #271

The Magical MisfireBy Daniel P. Douglas Episode 1: Finnegan and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Magical Day ‘Sup, fellow muggles and meme lords! Gather ‘round for a tale that’s more twisted than your average TikTok algorithm. Our story drops into Enchantium, a city so magical it makes Hogwarts look like a Walmart clearance bin. Enter Finnegan Fizzlebottom, our protagonist and walking disaster. Picture if you will, a wizard whose wand work is about as smooth as dial-up internet. This dude’s got more eagerness than a puppy on espresso an...

11 likes 5 comments 5
Read story