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Rebecca Lewis

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2023

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40 Followers
40 Following

150 Stories

1037 karma pts

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The Wrong Year

The plan was simple.Meet at the bus stop at 9:00 p.m. Take the last bus out of town. Get off three stops later near the old train yard. Walk to the storage shed behind the tracks. Open the door with the key Jamie had “borrowed” from her uncle.Inside the shed would be the time capsule their school buried twenty years ago. Their old principal had finally admitted where it was. They weren’t supposed to open it until next year, but nobody in town really cared anymore.At least that’s what Brian thought.He checked his phone. 8:58.The bus stop was ...

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The Choice

Rain slid down the windows of the last train out of the city. Inside the carriage, most of the lights were dim. A few passengers slept with their heads against the glass. Others stared at their phones, faces glowing pale in the quiet.Lisa sat near the back with a small suitcase tucked between her boots. The train rocked gently as it moved through the dark countryside. Every few minutes the wheels screeched against the rails, then settled back into their steady rhythm.She checked the time on her phone.11:47 p.m.Still two hours to go.Across th...

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The Last Night

The suitcase sits open on the bed, its zipper teeth glinting under the lamp. It isn’t big. Just big enough for a weeklong trip, maybe two if you pack carefully. Tonight it has to hold an entire life.Amanda stands in the doorway for a long time before she steps closer. The room still looks normal. Books on the shelf. A mug on the desk with three pens inside. Shoes kicked under the chair like she’ll wear them tomorrow. But tomorrow she won’t be here.She starts with clothes because they’re easiest. Two pairs of jeans. Three shirts. A sweater th...

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The Return Address

Stephen knew something was wrong the moment the coffee cup shattered.The sound cracked through the quiet kitchen like a gunshot. Ceramic burst across the tile. Coffee splashed outward, spreading through the tiny cracks in the floor like branching rivers."Seriously?” he muttered.He grabbed a towel and crouched down. The cup must have slipped. His grip had felt off all morning.It was one of those days.Then the doorbell rang.Stephen straightened slowly, wiping his hands. For a second he just stood there staring at the front door.A strange press...

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Ashes at 3:16

Every year on the same day, the fog rolled in before dawn.It crept over the harbor, quiet and thick, swallowing the piers, the gulls, the crooked lantern posts. By the time the church bell rang six times, the town of Calder’s Point was already half gone inside it.And by then, Tim Lewis already knew.He always knew.The first time it happened, he thought it was a nightmare. The second time, a coincidence. By the tenth time, he stopped counting the loops and started counting the hours.Seven hours. That’s how long he had before the fire.Tim sat o...

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A Sky That Didn’t Tear

At first, it was just the clocks.Saskla noticed it on a Tuesday. The kitchen clock said 8:17 when she poured her coffee. She carried the mug to the living room, glanced at the wall clock, and it said 8:12. Five minutes earlier. She stood there, coffee steaming in her hand, waiting for one of them to correct itself.Neither did.She checked her phone. 8:19.“Cheap batteries,” she muttered, though she’d changed them both last week.By noon, the problem had spread. The sun hung low and heavy like late afternoon, but the digital sign outside the gro...

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Arrival Records

The following materials were recovered from a water-damaged shoebox in the attic of 214 Bell Street after the property was sold in 1998. Excerpt from The Bell Street Gazette June 3, 1974 CITY TO DEMOLISH ABANDONED TRAIN DEPOT After standing vacant for nearly a decade, the Old Bell Street Depot is scheduled for demolition on June 20. City officials cite structural instability and repeated reports of trespassing as reasons for removal.Built in 1891, the depot once served as the industrial center of Bell Street. Engineers note the building’s...

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The Battle for the Page

On the night before the crossing, General George Washington asked for a second boat.The first boat was already at the edge of the Delaware, its hull nudging the ice. Soldiers stamped their feet on the frozen bank, muskets clutched under damp wool coats. The river was black and loud, broken by slabs of drifting ice. History, as it was supposed to happen, waited on the other side.Washington stood apart from the men. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and very tired. A lantern swung from a post behind him, lighting his face from below.“Another boat...

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Personal Day

Every morning, Sean woke up at 6:12.Not 6:10. Not 6:15. 6:12.He’d chosen the time years ago because it felt slightly unusual, like he was getting away with something. But after twelve years of the same alarm, the same shower, the same coffee measured with the same chipped blue scoop, there was nothing unusual left about it.His life ran on rails.He lived on the third floor of a brick apartment building that always smelled faintly of toast. He left at 7:03. He caught the 7:11 train. He stood in the second car, near the door, one hand looped th...

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The Moment Between Us

The music stopped first.Not faded. Not stumbled. It just cut out mid-note, like someone had yanked the cord from the wall.Alyssa was halfway through her vows.One second she was saying, “I never believed in fate until—” and the next, silence swallowed the garden. A hundred white chairs. A string quartet frozen with bows hovering over strings. Her father still holding her bouquet because she’d pressed it into his hands to wipe her palms.And then the screaming started.Not loud at first. Just a ripple from the back rows, like confusion finding i...

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The Still Place Below

Allison had always been afraid of the water.Not the polite, careful kind of fear. Not the kind that makes you avoid the deep end at pool parties and laugh it off. Hers was the kind that lived in her chest. The kind that tightened her throat at the smell of chlorine and woke her at night with the memory of cold, dark pressure closing over her head.She was eight when the river took her under. Slipped on moss. Hit her chin on rock. Saw nothing but brown churn and white bubbles. Her father’s hands pulled her out in time, but something stayed beh...

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Where the Light Found Her

The car door is still open when the siren starts.It’s a thin sound at first, somewhere far off, easy to mistake for wind pushing through the parking garage. Samantha has one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the envelope in her lap. The paper is soft from being folded and unfolded all morning. Her name is written on the front in her mother’s careful, slanted handwriting.Her fingers press into it without meaning to, creasing the corner.The siren grows louder.Across the concrete levels, tires screech. A door slams. Someone shouts, “H...

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The Shape of Expectation

Weekly Contest #343

Everyone knew the dragon would come at dawn.That’s what the prophecy said. The scroll was very clear about it. Dawn, smoke, fire, screaming, a chosen hero with a birthmark shaped like a crescent moon. The whole thing had been workshopped for centuries.So the town prepared.Blacksmiths hammered through the night. Bakers handed out free bread to nervous families. Parents hugged their children a little too long. And at the center of it all stood Adam, who had the crescent moon birthmark and a sword that was slightly too heavy for him.He practice...

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The Morning After Rain

The last time I kissed John, it was raining.Not the dramatic kind of rain you see in movies. Just a steady, gray drizzle that made everything feel smaller. The parking lot outside my apartment smelled like wet asphalt and pine from the trees lining the curb. His car idled at the edge of the sidewalk, exhaust curling into the damp air.We’d been standing there for ten minutes, talking in circles.“It doesn’t have to end like this,” he said again, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jacket. His hair was plastered to his forehead. He hadn’t...

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Two Dollar Bills

When Chelsea first noticed him, he was arguing with a vending machine.It was late, close to midnight, and the hospital lobby had the washed-out look of a place that never truly sleeps. The fluorescent lights hummed. The coffee in her paper cup tasted burnt and thin. She had been there for nine hours, sitting with her younger brother after his surgery, and the world had narrowed to plastic chairs and the slow crawl of the clock.The vending machine swallowed his dollar and gave nothing in return.“You can’t just take it,” he said, pressing his ...

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