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Rae Beuke

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Mar, 2025

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17 Stories

242 karma pts

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How To Stop a Rocket Launch In Ten Minutes

Weekly Contest #360

"T-minus ten minutes till launch." A nasal voice informed me."Not helping, Jerry," I hissed back."It's not my job to help, it's my job to keep you informed and on task," Jerry backfired."Shut up and let me work, I'm going as fast as I can." I grumbled.I realize I should probably explain, given whoever reading this may have a couple of questions. Honestly, if I was looking at what you're looking at, I'd have a few questions too. Starting with: what the heck is this Jerry dude talking about? And. Who is this charming narrator?My name is Corde...

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Destination Unknown

Weekly Contest #359

"Hello?" My voice echoes through the labyrinth of tunnels. The reverberations sound nervous in my ears. "Anyone there?" I ask as I turn on my flashlight. There's no answer. Of course, there isn't; it's an abandoned train station. Why would there be? I take a few tentative steps down the stairwell, wondering if there's a light switch somewhere in here.Washington Station has been abandoned for centuries. It had been named after an American President the people had loved, or something like that. I suppose the place had once been beautiful. Eve...

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Where Forgotten Things Go

Weekly Contest #353

“Can we go home now? We’ve been out here for hours.” Nancy whined, stabbing her shovel into the dirt. Despite her lack of tact, she was right; we’d been digging for at least four hours. As far as I was concerned, the longer I stayed out here digging, the less time I had to spend at home. Not much of a win-win situation, but I’d take what I could get. “We can’t leave yet.” Ms. Liu replied, “We still have four more trees to plant. Evangaline, would you mind grabbing the other shovel?” “Yes, Ma’am.” I hurried over to grab the shovel. Before I c...

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The Girl Who Saw Green

Weekly Contest #352

“Just one, please,” I said, fishing around in my pocket for change. Crap, forgot my wallet again. The cashier nodded and gave me a wrinkled smile as she hurried to start my coffee. Work was going to be endless today, more long hours of erasing the idea of color from history, and on top of that, a meeting discussing Dr. Lee’s new invention. “Order for Samuel Smith.” The barista called. She looked ready to quit her job if one more person had the last name of Smith. I grabbed my mug of steaming gray coffee. It swirled drearily in my hands, mak...

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Adjourned. Indefinitely.

Weekly Contest #351

The seven of them sat around the table, locked in intense conversation. I sat amazed as I watched. Meetings like this one only happened once in a thousand years. The Seven Aspects of the universe, the fibers of humanity, gathered in one room: Good, Evil, Life, Death, Love, Hate, and my friend Dave, from accounting.“Well, what are we to do?” Good asked. “It will not take humanity much longer to twist the rest of us.” She leaned back and crossed her arms indignantly. The morals of what Good was were constantly changing, and she was not pleased...

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The Backyard Soldier (A Memoir of Suburban Warfare)

Weekly Contest #350

I woke up to the sound of screaming. Not fearful. Not pained. Loud, chaotic, bratty screaming. I rolled over in bed and slammed my hand on the snooze button of my almost-more-ancient-than-myself alarm clock. Seriously?! I thought I fought in Vietnam, and these ungrateful little mongrels can’t give me a moment of sleep? I groaned at the ache in my back.“Helen!” I yelled. My daughter came rushing in with a cup of steaming coffee and a stack of pancakes. I gave her a sloppy grin. Helen thought that when she wasn’t visiting, I barely had the str...

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Gary And I: The Survivors of Field Springs

Weekly Contest #349

The Apocalypse. Everyone’s heard of it, and though the details are vague and the chance of survival even more so, you can bet that everyone believes it’ll happen at some point. But when is some point? No one ever believes that such a world-changing disaster would ever strike in their lifetime. I didn’t believe it either. Until I did. No one saw it coming. No one had the chance. One day, I was sitting on my skateboard, eating a popsicle, trying to fight off the August heat. Then the sky started falling. Literally. Thousands of meteors are cr...

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Plaid, Panic, and Poor Decisions

Weekly Contest #346

Earth, a great man once said, is the insane asylum of the universe. Standing in a room full of boys dancing on top of desks, I can confirm this. The only thing I can truly say about that situation? I was one of those monkeys. Do I regret it? No. Do I wish I hadn’t gotten Saturday detentions for the rest of the year? Yes. Do I still think it was for a good cause? Also yes.The Snowcap Middle Strike. I am proud to say it will go down in middle school revolution history. The only thing people will be wondering years from now, when all the revolu...

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Elevators and Coffee

Weekly Contest #344

“Crap.” I hissed as my body went tumbling down the staircase. Bang. Crash. Bonk.Ow, ow, and ow. I lay sprawled at the bottom of the stairwell. Could this day get any better? I swear this stupid apartment building is trying to kill me.“Are you alright, Stacy?” Mr. Penfell asked. I gave him a noncommittal grunt as he pulled me to my feet.“I could be better,” I sighed. “Falling down the stairs was definitely not how I imagined my morning starting.”Mr. Penfell nodded.“Well, I should feed my cat,” he continued. “I hope the rest of your day goes w...

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Everything That Went Unsaid

Weekly Contest #343

There are approximately 1,010,300 words in the English language. Yet there will never be enough words to express how sorry I am for everything. I wish I could knock on that old red door one last time. I wish Dad didn’t have to leave. I wish Mom didn’t have to work. I wish you could’ve been happy.Then again, there are days that I’m glad we made it on our own. I’m proud we took care of ourselves. I liked that it was us against the world. It’s selfish, I know, but I knew you better than anyone else. We were partners in crime. We were the heroes...

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The Bears Who Loved Her

Weekly Contest #341

“It’s still the same,” Gigi whispered, staring at the quaint little cottage in front of her. Countless hours of suppressed giggles and soft footsteps echoed in her mind. It had been ten years, and the woodland cottage still stood, frozen in time. Gigi took a hesitant step forward, feeling that if she moved too fast, the world around her would shatter like a broken mirror.You're not supposed to be here. The trees whispered in the same deep tones they always had. They always spoke in his voice. Gigi paused, glancing up at the trees, to watch t...

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The Monster in The Margins

Weekly Contest #340

It always starts the same way. Every age, century, generation, every single time there’s a ‘Once upon a time’. This story is different -Once upon a time, in a world quite unlike our own, there was a kingdom of Fairies ruled by a tyrant queen and her ruthless siblings. Queen Kalevala was said to drink the blood of her enemies and put their tears into her bread. Of all the Fairies, she was the cruelest of them all. Lies, lies, and look, more lies! My sister was a queen, yes, but she was a gentle ruler, you son of a three-headed trout! Her pers...

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The Long Way Around a Love Story

Weekly Contest #339

The sky was dark, as it always was in Washington this time of year. The state was altogether dreary and unassuming, but hidden within pockets of rolling green hills and sprawling forests, magic older than time danced in the air. Far away from civilization, a cabin rested on the crest of a hill, overlooking a small lake where the water was now frozen over. Inside the cabin, the fire roared, and three children sat cross-legged on the floor. They watched their parents and grandparents, uncles and aunts, and the occasional older cousin hurry aro...

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Stealing From Clay

Weekly Contest #338

The library was empty; it always was this time of day. I slipped between the towering shelves, my eyes scanning for the moth-eaten red leather that caused this little outing.“Are you crazy?!” Charlotte whisper-yelled from her perch on the wooden ladder behind me. “We’re going to get caught, and then we’re going to be executed, all because you just had to strike a deal with a mage. We don’t even know if this book actually exists!”“Relax, Char,” I grinned back, “This isn’t the worst thing I’ve roped us into.” Charlotte huffed. She was the only...

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A Matter of Time

Weekly Contest #337

If I took the time to think about it, time is such an interesting concept. Time, the master who takes and takes but never gives. The father who leads you to your death and disguises your short life as a blessing. Yes. Time is a very interesting concept. I myself have never been bound by the shackles of time. I’ve watched kingdoms rise and empires fall. I’ve seen men and women alike search for the secret of immortality. But I’d never seen one who could bend time to their will. Not until he came along. I remember the day I met him better than ...

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