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Nicholas Lira

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2026

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24 Followers
8 Following

5 Stories

145 karma pts

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What Stays

Weekly Contest #341

I arrived in Atwater because I had finally learned what it meant to miss something. That may sound obvious to you. It wasn’t to me. Missing implies absence with weight, and weight is not something I usually carry. I move through places the way a shadow moves across a wall, noticed only when it lingers too long. Most places let me pass without consequence. This town did not. Atwater stayed with me in the small, unremarkable ways that matter more than they should: the front steps dipping slightly in the middle, the air smelling like rain even ...

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The Weight Begins Again

Weekly Contest #340

Sensitive Content: Non-graphic violence / depictions of death I do not choose who dies; I am lifted, and someone else decides. The hands that draw me hesitate for less than a breath. It is never long enough to matter, though the pause is always there at first, measured only by how long the fingers resist closing. By the time I leave my sheath, I am already heavier than before. The weight is never new, only added to. When flesh parts beneath my edge, I do not drink blood. I do not hunger. What I take cannot be seen, but it does not fade. Som...

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Between the Two

Weekly Contest #339

On a quiet morning, it was suddenly cold after months of heat. The change felt abrupt, almost wrong, like the world had shifted while I wasn’t paying attention. I stood still for a moment, breathing in air that stung my lungs just enough to remind me it was real.I imagined snowflakes drifting down like quiet feathers, soft and weightless, settling on rooftops and shoulders alike. I’d heard stories about snow, how it muted the world, how it made everything look new, but I’d never seen it myself. Not once. Winter, where I came from, was just a...

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Blood That Wasn’t Mine

Weekly Contest #338

The crimson color dripped from her hands as she stared at her reflection rippling across the pool’s surface. The blood wasn’t hers. She knew that much with a certainty that made her stomach twist. Still, it clung to her fingers as if it belonged there, dark and sticky, gathering beneath her nails. Lucy dipped her hands into the pool. The water was shockingly cold, biting against her skin, and she sucked in a breath as she scrubbed her palms together. Red streamed away in thin ribbons, dissolving into pale pink clouds that vanished almost as ...

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Dear Dad

Weekly Contest #337

Dear Dad, It’s me again. Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve written to you. I wanted to tell you about something that happened today. I went to a festival. It wasn’t the Se festival, but it reminded me of it. I wandered around for a bit and came across a small group of musicians playing in the open. The music was lively, and everyone was dancing and laughing like nothing else in the world mattered. There was a flute player who played with so much grace that it pulled me right back to the first time you took us to the Se festival. That was ri...

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