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Kaleigh Allender

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2024

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12 Followers
3 Following

8 Stories

144 karma pts

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The Narcissist

Weekly Contest #347

It was four in the morning and blissfully quiet save for the gentle hum of the car engine in the empty parking lot. Hailey pulled out her phone camera to apply lip gloss and check for any lingering traces of fear. A car pulled in, then, right under the streetlight on the other side of the parking lot. It was gleaming, perfectly clean and crisp, the star of the show. Her father’s. Hailey glanced at the coffee shop. The lights were dark. Good. She took a breath. A car door slammed before she was ready, making her flinch in her seat. She grabbe...

26 likes 5 comments 5
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Sisyphus

They say Sisyphus is happy but that's only what people want to believe. They don't want to believe a punishment so painful exists because then there's a non-zero chance that they could receive the same treatment. No one would ever be happy doing what Sisyphus does, rolling a larger-than-life boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down again, and having to do it all over for the rest of eternity. It's the equivalent of letting bread dough rise for days only to leave it close enough to the edge of the counter for the dogs to grab it at the...

1 like 0 comments 0
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How to be Brave

Weekly Contest #343

November 25, 2020My armpits are slick with perspiration as I hover outside of the boy’s wrestling room. People mill about in the halls, unaware of the mild heart attack I was about to have right there in the middle of the hallway. My mask is fastened tightly across my face like a shield. Thank goodness we still had the requirement to wear masks when they let us back into school. The door opens, and I jump against the wall to hide myself. A massive man wearing a tank top that reveals biceps the size of tree trunks walks out of the doors.No, I...

7 likes 0 comments 0
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The price of ambition

Weekly Contest #341

**Warning: this story contains themes of sex work It’s for the greater good. That’s what she kept telling herself, at least, when she knocked on the same chipped, red-painted door she knocked on one year ago. Gosh, she was so young back then. How old was she? Eighteen. She had just turned eighteen the week before submitting college applications. That week brings back memories–salty tears streaming down her face as she realized that her middle-class family didn’t qualify for a fee waiver, the wave of adrenaline when someone responded on the a...

9 likes 0 comments 0
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Bliss Guaranteed or Your Money Back

Weekly Contest #326

Dan was in the middle of flipping someone off at a bar, cackling with drunken laughter, when the bomb exploded. For a moment, there was only darkness-a world so diluted that it may as well have never existed. This must be what Helen Keller felt like-suspended in a space, living without any real sense of life. Then, light cut through his eyes like knives of sunlight, which caused him to throw his hands over his face in shock. Something warm covered him-a cloth?-but he couldn’t bring his hands away from his eyes. Eventually, the light dimmed,...

10 likes 4 comments 4
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Sharp Edges

Weekly Contest #325

The wind didn’t knock me over but breezed right through my bones. Goose bumps rise on my skin as I involuntarily shiver from the cold starting to infiltrate my beautiful fall days, days where all I needed to do to feel warmth was look up. Winter is coming soon.“June!” A voice says, and I feel an elbow interlock with my own, just as soon as I push open the doors to Lemwood high, my 7-5PM forced job for two more years. Not that I have anywhere better to go. I’ll get a diploma just like everyone else and be one more fish in the pond that eventu...

19 likes 1 comment 1
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Still Waters

Weekly Contest #324

I’ve been a sinner from the start. It’s me, Eli. I should have introduced myself first, but I wanted to admit it to you again so you would know I’m aware. You’re probably angry at me every second of every day because I just cannot stop sinning. That has to be a heavy weight to hold, to have sacrificed your only son for the likes of me. You watched as Jesus got whipped with barbs and rocks attached to the ends, again and again until his skin was tender enough to fly off with the whip like shedding skin. He survived the whippings that most men...

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Where the Heat Doesn't Reach

The house was cold and unforgiving, chilling Lena to the bone. She wished she could have stayed on campus for winter break, but her scholarship didn’t cover housing during the breaks. So here she is. Back in a home that was dead even before he was gone. The heater is turned off to save money. Dirty dishes fill the sink. Bags of half empty chips and discarded ramen packages litter the kitchen counters. They would have belonged to her brother, but they must be from her mother. Lena opens the pantry; filled to the brim with miscellaneous food i...

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