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Mary Butler

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Apr, 2024

Stories (5)
Comments
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212 Followers
190 Following

5 Stories

1709 karma pts

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The Thirteenth Door

Submitted to Contest #332

I touched the frostbitten cheek of the corpse in the alley, ignoring the rain sliding down my neck. She shouldn't be this warm.The sleet had turned the ground into a gray mirror, and the security light above the restaurant's back door flickered with the desperate rhythm of a dying heart. The air reeked of fish sauce and copper, rotting vegetables and blood. My breath fogged in front of me, visible proof that I was still among the living. Hers didn't. Yet her skin held warmth that had no business being there, hours after death in weather cold...

35 likes 11 comments 11
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Cosmic Interference

Submitted to Contest #330

I didn't mean for the kiss to be our last. Mostly because I don't remember kissing her at all. The dead woman on my couch turned another page of my signed first edition of Practical Demonkeeping, using the dust jacket as a bookmark and the actual book as a coaster for what appeared to be spectral tea. I watched a ring of moisture that shouldn't exist form on Christopher Moore's signature. "You're staring," she said without looking up. Her voice carried the particular timbre of someone who'd died mid-sentence and refused to let that stop her ...

22 likes 14 comments 14
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Cancel Me Softly

Submitted to Contest #282

An influencer going Amish is like a fish trying to live on land. Sure, you can flop around for a while, but eventually, the lack of Wi-Fi will kill you. How did I end up here, you ask? Well… I wake up to 3,000 notifications. Normally, that’s champagne-popping territory—viral content, ad deals rolling in, and enough dopamine to light up Times Square. Today? Not so much. By the time I scroll past the meme of my face photoshopped onto a cockroach, it’s painfully clear: Brynn Starr isn’t trending. I am canceled. What killed me? A leaked vid...

46 likes 62 comments 62
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Santa, The Hitman?

Winner of Contest #278 🏆

Content Note:This story contains references to physical violence and implied gore. These elements are presented in a darkly comedic and absurd context, focusing on the moral and emotional implications rather than explicit descriptions. Reader discretion is advised.The hospice smells like antiseptic and failed dreams. A Christmas-themed air freshener dangles from the IV stand, swaying in time with my father’s mechanical wheezing. It smells like cinnamon. And regret. The fluorescent lights hum, drowning out the morphine’s slow drip.Hi, I’m the...

178 likes 183 comments 183
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Insatiable

Submitted to Contest #275

Darkness.Not the kind that comes when you close your eyes. This is something else—heavy, dense, like the world’s been erased. It’s pressing down, sinking through me. I can’t breathe—can I? My chest should be moving, doing…something.I don’t know why I expect that.Then…something else. A noise. No, not a noise. A memory.“I love you, babe.” A woman’s voice—warm, laughing. I can almost feel her next to me, see her face, smell her perfume, something like freshly peeled oranges—Gone. Just like that.I try to hold onto it, but it slips away like smok...

49 likes 55 comments 55
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