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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2025
Submitted to Contest #336
The sound wakes me up. I’m not sure what it is. I never am. My eyes barely open, but I already know what the red glow is trying to tell me. 23:14. It always is. I close my eyes. Drift back to sleep. I wake up. Get dressed. Go to work. I come home. Eat dinner. Watch TV. Go to bed. The noise tears me from my slumber again. The red glow demands my attention. I turn away. Curiosity twists my head back, pries my eyes open. 23:14. I close my eyes, not feeling the relief I expected. I fall back to sleep. I dream of shadows at my window, watching, w...
I woke up to absolute pandemonium. Banging. Shouting. Someone crying. The noise filled the room so completely it felt like it was pressing on my chest, making it hard to breathe. I looked at my friends. Their faces were white as sheets. A horrible mixture of regret, fear and guilt stretched across both of them. Their mouths were moving far too fast, desperate to explain something, anything, but no single sound made it through. Everything arrived at once, jammed together, useless. Then the banging stopped. The silence was worse. A slow creaki...
“You can’t honestly be considering it?” “Why not? I could do with the break.” “Because it’s immoral. Not to mention flipping weird.” “How can it be immoral? They have adverts for it on TV.” “Yeah, because nothing immoral has ever been on the telly. It’s just another way for the rich to take advantage of the poor.” “How have you made it about rich vs poor, again?” “Because that’s what it always comes down to. It always has, and it always will.” “In what way is this another attack on the poor? If anything, it’s helping them out.” “Forcing vuln...
Submitted to Contest #335
CW: Gore, death The knock at my door was loud. Deliberate. Demanding. I walked towards it, muttering about the money wasted on the doorbell. When I opened the door, no one was there. I peered down the street. Empty. Too far to run. Nowhere to hide. I looked down. A small box sat on my doorstep. It was wrapped in newspaper, with a string tied neatly into a bow at the top. The label on it said my name. TO MAISE, Written in all capitals, as if it really needed me to know it was for me. I thought about shutting the door. Leaving it there. Actual...
Have you ever been convinced you’d seen something in the corner of your eye, but when you turn to look, it’s gone. The official reason is that your peripheral vision is great at detecting movement, but not very good at working out what it actually is. A shadow can look much more substantial before your brain swoops in and to tell them to stop being so paranoid. It’s only a bloody shadow. But what if it isn’t. What if your eyes are right. What if you’re seeing something you’re not supposed to be able to. It’s like an echo, but with your e...
The light flicked on and off. Screams filled the basement. Jack’s eyes were a mix of fear and apology. He assured me he’d done it before. I’d believed everything he told me, right up until when the walls started to bleed. I caught a glimpse of his face. He looked just as surprised, and petrified as the rest of us. He had no idea what was happening now, or what was to come.Shadows flew around the room, occasionally swooping at our faces.“What do we do, Jack?” screamed Kelly. Both her and Izzy hid their faces behind their hands, trying to sepa...
Holly was startled awake by a noise. It had stopped now. Nothing but silence. A glance at her phone. 02:00. Sleep was essential. Tomorrow she was helping her sister move house. Moving in with her boyfriend. Of course, he couldn’t help. Football was on. Couldn’t possibly miss one game to support the woman he loved as she started their new life together. Arsehole. Eyes closed. Thoughts refused to follow. Then, the noise. The vibration shook the bed. The frame creaked under the strain. The sound dragged itself across the duvet, rotten and wet, ...
Submitted to Contest #334
I read once that a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet. Using that logic, a stranger is also someone you haven’t been murdered by yet. I only really have two people I like, and there were 714 murders in the UK in 1993 alone, so the odds aren’t exactly in friendship’s favour. That’s why the number one rule is: do not speak to strangers. Sally and Jessie say it’s for my own good. I would joke and say, in a spooky voice, “The perils of talking to strangers.” They’d never laugh. It made me a little happy for a bit, so I kept saying it....
Apparently, what makes burglary such a vicious crime isn’t the loss. It’s the invasion. Your home is where you feel safe. It’s more than theft. It feels personal. If someone can enter your home and steal, what’s to stop them from doing something much worse? Every bump you hear at night shakes you with insidious dread. A simple thud conjures a plethora of bone-chilling scenarios, each one more vicious than the last. Therefore those who commit such crimes should be dealt with accordingly. Tried and punished in a way fitting to the offence.They...
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