reedsymarketplace
Hire professionals for your project
reedsyblog
Advice, insights and news
reedsylearning
Online publishing courses
reedsylive
Free publishing webinars
reedsydiscovery
Launch your book in style
Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2024
Submitted to Contest #328
Galfrid Blyth looked past his campfire to the stars, his sword resting over his knees and reflecting the dancing light. Henry Blyth lit a cigarette, illuminating the night for a moment, before tossing the empty matchbook into the mud and repositioning his rifle against his shoulder. Kalfrit Blyth slid the dial on his utility bracer to push a white glow out into the void, flicking his wrist to set his repeater into his grip. Each rested on the eve of war. “Are you shittin’ your pants, Galfrid!?” A gruff voice bellowed. Shortly followed by Bol...
Submitted to Contest #327
Duke was humiliated. To be cornered so completely by his own hubris…it was shameful. He looked down through the gnarled branches at the hard ground, so very far below and rumbled displeasure at the back of his throat. It had been bird. Simply a bird, that had been his undoing. One he had never seen before. Bright, shining and so exotic he had salivated over its imagined taste. But it had been a trap. The dazzling beauty had lured him higher and higher, until he was too far gone. Then it had simply fluttered away into the sky, turning to a do...
Submitted to Contest #326
Silence is never absolute. There are always sounds. The creak of a house. The rattle of the wind. The rustle of a leaf. We simply never assign any note to the noises that are our daily companions. The mind accepts them as normal, as safe, and allows us to comfortably ignore them. Such was my home, for years. Surrounded by the familiar, I would snuggle down into my evenings, hot mug in hand and with a woollen blanket’s embrace. Alone, I would accept the move and sway of my little world and pay it no mind. Until one night. The evening where fo...
Submitted to Contest #324
Water flowed slowly, yet powerfully, around and past Reto. The surface was painted green with the reflections of trees, towering over its mirror. His father’s canoe put a thick wooden wall between him and the liquid forest. Its embrace made him feel safe, able to move with the strength of the river, as part of it, rather than against it. Dipping his oar gently below the surface, he swirled the images into a mess of murky debris and glided forward. The great river, the Rio Amazonas, mother of all things and giver of life, fell before Reto’s o...
Shortlisted for Contest #322 ⭐️
My father was a runner. Every day he would wake before the sun rose, and I’d hear the front door click against the frame as he crept out to thunder around the city. He would never whisper goodbye, or kiss our sleeping foreheads. He would simply be gone when the house began to stir. My mother would make us breakfast, get us to school and reliably see us through the day. My father would go straight from his pavement pounding to his very ordinary office job. He would not return until my brother and I were safely back in warm pyjamas and ready t...
Submitted to Contest #321
It was unusual to find another traveller on the road to the dead lands. Plenty moved in the opposite direction, eyes down, trying everything to avoid acknowledging the existence of the blackened landscape. But not once in his long journey had Bolden found someone imitating his own path. It was suspicious. He had intentionally maintained a distance between himself and the stranger as they both strode along the old road. He walked warily, matching the speed of the man throughout the ever-stretching day of travel. That evening, after the miles ...
Submitted to Contest #320
The deep and dark forest was a tapestry of green. Hanging leaves, shrubs and branches, idyllic and serene. Emma flitted and flapped, sprinting around the tall trees. She was lightning, a blur, going wherever she pleased. Her feathers were preened; they were smooth as a sheet. That evening she hunted, for something to eat. It was never a challenge to fill her small belly. She was fast and the opportunities, well, they were many. Bugs, nuts, berries and plenty of fruits; her favourites were the freshest from newly grown shoots. She ate her fil...
Submitted to Contest #319
Darkness parted ahead of Sir Baristan, like waters before a ship. The murk was sliced apart by the wondrous effect of his armour. Enchantments etched into the metal created the fortunate side effect of a golden, glowing light, which emanated strongly from the full suit whenever it touched against his skin. The effect was strong enough to illuminate much of the underground cavern, allowing the army at his back to see a good distance forward, where normally all would be lost to the stone above. He winced whenever his eyes drifted up to the opp...
Submitted to Contest #317
Reginald saw no change at all in the man sat across from him. He didn’t appear to have even moved. His old face was still creased with deep lines; his cheeks were redder than they used to be and what was left of his hair was just as grey as always. The damn fool had gone and gotten old. He hadn’t truly noticed until that moment. But then, when was the last time he had really looked at his friend? It never seemed necessary. He knew the twit's face well enough, having to deal with it every damn day for the past thirty years. No matter. He was ...
Submitted to Contest #316
Pebble sized fragments of broken concrete clattered in bursts down the walls of the crater. Ethan ignored them. He likewise blocked out the sound of the sirens above, the shouts from all around, and the constant splashing of water. The broken pipes would continue to gush torrents into the hole until someone thought to turn off the supply. He refused to remind them. Mosaic shards of man-made stone decorated the sloped walls. Wet dirt, wind-blown dust and twisted metal added their own sculptures to the gallery of destruction. Ethan had seen it...
Winner of Contest #314 🏆
It was almost impossible to make out the lone figure, shuffling slowly across the expanse of sand, far below. Only his movement gave him away. Wrapped in pale shreds of clothing, caked in tan grit and burnt red by the oppressive sun, he was all but a part of the desert already. Anubis, crouched in the shade of a rocky outcrop, panted his jackal tongue in an effort to cool himself. The heat of the clear day was extreme, the weight of its pressure, unrelenting. He pressed as much of his bare skin against the rocks as possible, his fingers spre...
Submitted to Contest #313
“Are you there, God? It’s me…” Alice whispered.Her knees pinched on the polished timber flooring of her bedroom, but the expensive linen sheets under her elbows were a soft reprieve. The rough callouses of her palms pressed together, her overused hands finding a brief recess with only each other to sense. It’s something no one ever told you about being blind, how abused your hands would become.“I’m here, Alice.” God said, his commanding voice reverberating from above.She laughed with joy, soft tears running from her clouded and broken eyes. ...
Submitted to Contest #312
Every car that rumbled its engines past Ava’s new front door was a torment. She smoothed the edge of the bay window curtain between her fingers, frowning at how she had worn its edge with her repetitive twitching. They had said ten a.m. It was six minutes past. They were late. She released her fabric victim and walked back to the kitchen. Flicking the filled kettle on for the fourth time. His chaperone would want tea. She stared at the plate of biscuits, all ready to go, and pushed one with the end of her finger to form a perfect line of reg...
Submitted to Contest #311
George winced at the sound of his abused handbrake crunching its way up. State funds rarely stretched to preventative maintenance, and every click of the handle drove nails of frustration into his skull. He silenced his siren, left the lights spinning red and blue against the trees and called in the traffic stop to dispatch. Reaching over to the mounted laptop, he checked those damned boxes to confirm he had followed protocol, entered the plate number, switched on his body cam and finally, was able to open his door and act like a human being...
Submitted to Contest #309
Firelight glinted from the pommel of Marius’s sword, and he wondered how something so polished, could feel so dirty. He gripped the wooden handle, that he had also cleaned to a shine, and pinned the tip of its blade into the sand. A place it could do no more harm. His Gladius had survived every battle on the cursed trek through Arabia, and was beginning to show its tired age in the same way that he was. It had faded under the harsh sun, been abraded by the sand and was stained with gallons of blood that was wiped free, yet still remained to ...
Oops, you need an account for that!
Log in with your social account:
Or enter your email:
5 likes
