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Lena M. Bright

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2025

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171 Followers
397 Following

11 Stories

602 karma pts

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Food That Heals

Weekly Contest #362

Claire never set her sights on Provence. Instead, the village found her, sheltering her in a weathered hotel hidden beside a hushed square. She and her son Anthony arrived as spring softened the air, with only a suitcase, a lone photograph, and the fragile hope that life might finally quiet itself here. Claire told herself that quiet was enough, though she already feared how little room remained for failure, and how much depended on her keeping them both standing. In the beginning, she was simply the woman behind the front desk, her French d...

7 likes 5 comments 5
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WHAT SHE ALREADY KNEW

Weekly Contest #360

Isabel woke before the alarm.Dark room. Thin light under the curtain.Her body was already awake before her thoughts caught up.Her heart was racing.She could still hear Mami.Her grandmother's name was Victoria.To Isabel, she was Mami.Not words. Not clearly.Just her there.In the dream, she was in Mami’s kitchen.Same table. Same chipped mug with faded flowers.The fridge hummed low in the corner. A sound so familiar it didn’t register as sound anymore.Mami stood at the counter peeling an apple.Skin curling away in long strips, falling onto a pla...

43 likes 26 comments 26
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Thump… Thump… Thump

Weekly Contest #348

Thump… thump… thump. The sound filled the quiet room, uneven and urgent. Buddy pressed his head closer to the floor, listening, feeling it in every rise and fall of his human’s chest. Something was wrong. He didn’t know the words for it, but he knew the feeling—tight in the chest, slow in the hands, heavy in the room. Buddy nudged his human’s hand. It twitched slightly. He pressed closer. That was all he could do.Humans were strange. They spoke constantly, but most of it made no sense to him. Commands, names, questions—they were noises that ...

40 likes 17 comments 17
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The Curve

Weekly Contest #344

I was twelve the first time I walked through a place I had no way of knowing existed.It was the summer my family cruised along the Italian coast. The ship docked with a groan, gleaming in the sun like a polished pearl. The port was alive with movement, people haggling with vendors, the murmur of conversations blending with the distant hum of a street musician’s violin. The air was thick with the salty scent of the sea and the earthy aroma of fresh pastries from nearby bakeries. Everything felt new, bright, and slightly overwhelming.We had be...

37 likes 29 comments 29
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Almost Is Never Enough

Weekly Contest #337

I don't know when it started. Time, I mean. Maybe it’s always been a bit off, like when a clock tick-tocks just slightly out of sync. No one notices it until you’re trying to find a rhythm and it’s just... wrong. And then, after a while, it doesn’t feel strange anymore. It feels like home.But that’s how Mavis always was, unpredictable, untethered. And when she left, it was like the world paused, waiting for her to return.She never did. At least, not how I expected.When she moved away, I didn’t think it would last. “I’ll be back soon,” she pr...

45 likes 29 comments 29
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The Envelope I Almost Threw Away

Weekly Contest #335

The gift that changed my life arrived disguised as junk mail.It came wedged between a grocery flyer and a notice from the electric company, its envelope thin and pale, its corners softened as if it had already passed through many hands. My name was written across the front in ink that had faded to the color of dried leaves. No return address. No stamp that meant anything to me.I almost threw it away.That is the kind of detail people like to include later, when they tell stories, as proof of fate or irony. But the truth is simpler. I was tire...

67 likes 44 comments 44
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When the Sky Calls Your Name

Weekly Contest #332

Marta first heard the thunder the morning she finally tried to put his jacket away.The sky over Naples was clear. Sunlight bounced off laundry strung between buildings on Via Speranza. Scooters passed below, leaving the usual mix of petrol and coffee in the air. From the balcony she could see a thin line of the gulf.Inside the bedroom, the air was still.She stood in front of the wardrobe with Matteo’s navy windbreaker in her hands. His name was stitched inside the collar in uneven thread, her first attempt at sewing letters when he began los...

58 likes 37 comments 37
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Always Watching

Weekly Contest #319

I am always watching.They call me many things: “cat,” “stray,” “creature,” “monster.” None matters. Names are for humans. I answer only to what I am—older than their cities, the pavement, the emptiness in their hearts. I do not sleep. I eat only when hungry. I exist to move among them, to know them, and to take what they won't notice is gone.There is a rhythm to the city. Humans stagger through their days, missing the tremor in the walls, the whisper in the wind, the shadow at their periphery. I am that shadow. I slip past corners, through a...

36 likes 10 comments 10
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The Lantern Bearer

Weekly Contest #318

Elara’s hands shook as she lit the final lantern. The flame caught—golden, trembling—and the glass dome filled with soft light. A hundred lanterns already glowed in the grove, strung between ancient oaks like a net of stars. Yet this last one—the lantern to hang above Kael—mattered most.“You’re overthinking it,” teased Maris, the healer’s daughter, as she adjusted a string of blossoms around the archway.Elara forced a smile. “He’ll notice. He always notices.”Tonight was Choosing Night, when the Guardians of the valley were anointed by ancien...

21 likes 8 comments 8
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The Boy Behind the Smile

Weekly Contest #316

Every cautious step down the hallway felt like walking on glass, each footfall primed to shatter under a careless glance. Lockers slammed like gunshots. Footsteps echoed, laughter sliced the air, raw and sudden. Every sound made my chest tighten, as if shrinking around panic. Hugging my backpack, I wished it could seal the cracks in me, keep me from splintering apart.No one knew what I carried. Not my teachers, classmates, or my parents. Maybe that was best. Some things were meant to stay folded inside, fragile as a note hidden in a drawer.I...

9 likes 4 comments 4
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The Birthday Room

Weekly Contest #315

Nora almost didn’t open the envelope.It had been wedged under her apartment door, delivered between yesterday’s mail and this morning’s first cup of coffee. The envelope was thick, cream-colored, sturdy enough for origami, and smooth. No return address or stamp, just her name in dark ink, precise and deliberate.Inside: one sentence.You are cordially invited to your birthday.She frowned. Her birthday wasn’t until November, and even then, she rarely celebrated. Since her mother died five years ago, the day had been just another square on the c...

18 likes 2 comments 2
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