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J.Q. Crawford

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2025

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3 Stories

16 karma pts

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In the Fire

The fire was back—bright and devouring.Smoke clawed down my throat.Blood slicked into the mud beneath my knees. People in my village were screaming.My breath tore from my throat before I was fully awake.Something warm and rough moved along my arm. A hand. My eyes flew open as I sat up—nearly colliding with the messenger’s nose.I stiffened my arm straight between us and shoved him back. He had been sitting cross-legged, so he toppled backward with a thud. The cabin floor creaked beneath him.The messenger gracefully rolled himself back up to a...

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What Remains

Death was never something I wanted to understand by scent, yet it enveloped me in fire and cinnamon. Blackened blood clung to its feathers as its red-hot, harrowing eyes held mine.I sat paralyzed in the cold dirt as a realization settled in. I often prayed to the gods and once asked for a life rich with experience. Looking back, I suppose they had granted it well enough—pain had been the one constant they never failed to deliver. Let them rot up there.After all these years of avoiding omens and the silence of the gods’ absence, I laid my pal...

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Smoke and Signals

Weekly Contest #352

Experiment complete. Status: Failure.“Wynn. Good morning, Wynn.” A bird three shades darker than that of the light grey sky chirped from a thin branch outside a domed glass window that sat as the roof of Wynn’s home.The bird’s voice was distant, as if an echo at the back of her mind. White sunlight filled the room, illuminating dust particles suspended in the air and casting shadows from the tall trees that looked down into the room. Wynn lay stretched out on her bed, her body encased in a thin film of liquid, while she stared up at the bird...

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