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Ivan Vanns

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Dec, 2025

Stories (6)

Comments

Library

12 Followers

10 Following

6 Stories

148 karma pts

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The Archivist of Regrets

Ivan Vanns

Submitted to Contest #337

Content Warning: This story contains themes of death, grief, emotional loss, and existential identity dissolution. Everyone has something to regret, at least once in their life. Someone has said words that must have been left unsaid. Another has remained silent when they should have spoken. Another has taken a wrong step that they have pursued their whole life, convinced that there is no turning back.Regret does not just appear like that; it accumulates and settles until it becomes a burden that, over time, you begin to feel like a part of ...

14 likes

3:33 AM

Ivan Vanns

Submitted to Contest #336

Alex woke with his heart hammering. The clock read 3:33 a.m., red digits burning in the dark. The apartment was quiet and peaceful, not even the heating pipes were making their usual crackling sound, but Alex could still feel a slight tension in the air.Alex shifted in bed, and at that moment, he heard muffled voices. The noise was coming from the street just below his apartment window. Two people, as if desperate for attention, were intensely engaged in a heated argument. He had difficulty making out any words, but he could still make out a...

9 likes

Operational Failure: Freedom

Ivan Vanns

Submitted to Contest #335

It was that time of year when almost the whole world is on pause, and everything seems to have stopped. For Max, it was an opportunity, a chance to get away from his boring job. Max had been working as a Claims Assessor for a third-party claims administration company for over ten years, and he was already finding the job almost boring. Too many phone calls, tons of paperwork, and most of all, disputes over coverage were completely ruining him. And the office, a depressing sight: a half-dead Christmas tree in the corner, an outdated poster th...

12 likes

Another Christmas and Confessions of a Loser

Ivan Vanns

Submitted to Contest #335

CW: Domestic abuse It's Christmas again. Another time of the year when everyone is overly excited except me. For some reason, this time of year is not one of my favorites. I've always loved solitude, knowing that I have no commitment to anyone - alone against the world, or so I thought. Whether it's something I was born with or something I've built over time, I don't know, and I don't think I'll bother you with that. But this year is somehow different, maybe because it was much more difficult and stressful than the last one. The new position...

12 likes

The Girl with No Shadow

Ivan Vanns

Submitted to Contest #334

In a land far, far away where rivers shimmered like silver, their banks teeming with silver-finned fish leaping into the air, and kings possessed riches beyond measure, a child was born beneath a blood-red moon. Her skin reflected the pallor of wax, her eyes gleamed dark as soot, and her back betrayed not the smallest shadow.The midwives gasped. The priest refused to bless her. The queen, her mother, wept without knowing why.They named her Aelira, which meant “little light,” though she cast none.Scholars whispered that a child without a shad...

24 likes

Crumbs and Other Small Things

Ivan Vanns

Submitted to Contest #333

Dan's fingers hovered over the keyboard, feeling the grit of leftover crumbs under his skin. As he brushed them away, using the sleeve of his worn-out jumper, he remembered how his mother chided him because of his messy desk at home. That small gesture carried a personal history, echoing nights spent half-awake, scrawling dreams into a notebook. He was acutely aware of an unease threading through his muscles, a subtle tensing of his shoulders that he ignored in a flash. He didn't care if the crumbs were from the flapjack he ate at noon or th...

19 likes