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Rebecca Lewis

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2023

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60 Followers

59 Following

150 Stories

1511 karma pts

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At 1:17 in the morning, Chloe realized she had nowhere to go. She stood beneath the buzzing sign of the Blue Moon Laundromat with a trash bag full of clothes pressed against her hip. One of the letters in LAUNDROMAT had burned out, so the window glowed- LAUNDRO AT OPEN 24 HOURS Rain ticked against the glass. Chloe had eleven dollars and thirty-two cents in her pocket, a phone at nine percent, and a key to an apartment that wasn't hers anymore. So she went inside. The laundromat smelled like detergent, warm dust, and something faintly burnt. ...

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The Missing Room

By November, the Bellweather Hotel belonged to the wind. In summer, every room filled. Children ran wet-footed through the lobby after swimming in Lake Bellweather. Wedding parties crowded the bar. Suitcases rolled over the old wooden floors from morning until midnight. On warm evenings, guests carried drinks onto the long veranda and watched boats return to the marina. But after Labor Day, the tourists disappeared. The boats came out of the water. The ice cream shop in town reduced its hours, then closed entirely. Restaurants covered their ...

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The Train Between

Weekly Contest #370

The station clock had stopped at 11:42. Star noticed because everything else was still moving. Rain rattled against the glass roof. The departure board flickered between destinations. Somewhere down the platform, a vending machine hummed like it had all night to wait. But the clock's second hand didn't move. “Rashid,” she said. “Look.” Her brother barely glanced up. “Broken clock.” “It was working when we came in.” “So?” Star pointed at the tracks. Their train was sitting fifty feet away, doors open, lights glowing. They had been walking tow...

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11:02

August 30, 2026 — 11:02 AM Meghan’s phone buzzed while she was making coffee. The message came from her own number. DON’T GO OUTSIDE AT 11:13. She stared at it. Then she laughed. Not because it was funny, but because laughing seemed more reasonable than being afraid. She checked the sender again. Her name. Her photo. Her number. Meghan typed. Who is this? The reply arrived immediately. YOU. ABOUT ELEVEN MINUTES FROM NOW. 11:05 AM Meghan called her number. Her phone rang in her hand. Once. Twice. Then ...

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MISC.

The last box was labeled MISC. Diana hated that box. Every other box in her father’s house had a purpose. KITCHEN. BOOKS. BATHROOM. DONATE. She had written each word in thick black marker, pressing hard enough that the tip squeaked against the cardboard. But MISC. sat open in the middle of the living room, collecting the things that didn’t know where they belonged. A screwdriver. Three birthday candles. An expired library card. A photograph of a dog Diana barely remembered. A single chess piece. Her father had been dead for eleven ...

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The Other Side of the River

Allison opened her hand and let the key fall into the river. It vanished without ceremony. No flash of silver beneath the water, no final glint in the afternoon sun. Just a small plunk, and then the current folded over it as if the key had never existed. For three years, Allison had carried it on a red string around her neck. Now the string felt strangely light. “You actually did it,” Krish said behind her. Allison turned. Her younger brother stood halfway down the muddy bank, his sneakers already ruined. He stared at the river wit...

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Luma and the Falling Stars

Humans think stars disappear when morning comes.They don't.They fall.I should know. I'm the one who catches them.My name is Luma, and I live in the hollow of an ancient oak at the edge of the forest. To a human, I might look like a fox, if foxes had silver fur, moth wings, and antlers small enough to fit between two branches. I am a Keeper, one of the creatures responsible for returning fallen stars to the sky.Usually, the work is simple.A star tumbles into the forest. I find it glowing beneath a fern or floating in a stream. I tuck it into ...

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Passengers of Regret

Regina reached the station at 11:57 p.m. The last train was already waiting. That was strange. According to the faded timetable hanging above the platform, the final train had left twenty minutes ago. She checked her phone. No signal. Behind her, the road disappeared into thick fog. She could still hear the distant sirens from town, but they were getting closer. The train doors slid open. Nobody stepped out. Regina stared into the empty carriage. Every seat was vacant except for one near the back, where a black envelope rested ...

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Clocks Repaired. Memories Restored.

I should have known better. The sign had been hanging outside the antique shop for as long as anyone in town could remember. CLOCKS REPAIRED. MEMORIES RESTORED. Most people laughed at the second line. I did too, until the day I walked in carrying my grandfather's broken pocket watch. The shop smelled of cedar, dust, and rain, though it hadn't rained in weeks. Behind the counter stood an elderly woman with silver hair tied into a knot so neat it looked carved from stone. "You've come for more than the watch," she said. "I've come ...

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The Morning After

Everyone in town blamed me for what happened to Mr. Seifi. They never said it to my face, of course. They'd smile politely in the grocery store or wave from their porches. But I could tell what they were thinking. They thought I'd scared the old man away. They're wrong. Mr. Seifi lived next door for twelve years. Every morning at exactly 7:15, he'd sit on his porch with a chipped blue mug and feed the sparrows. We'd talk about baseball, the weather, and whether the tomatoes would survive another heat wave. He wasn't lonely. He had me. ...

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The Cost of Pretending

People smile before I say a word. They laugh at jokes I haven't made yet. They tell stories about me while I'm standing right there, and half the time I don't recognize the person they're describing. Apparently, I'm fearless. That's the version that spread. The one who never hesitates, never doubts, never loses sleep over a decision. I don't know who started it. Maybe it was the time I walked into a room pretending I wasn't terrified. Maybe it was luck wearing the right expression. The truth is, I rehearse phone calls. I stand outsid...

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The Treasure We Leave Behind

The first thing Mollie heard that Monday morning wasn’t the school bell. It was a whisper. “I heard someone found a hidden room under the library.” She froze just outside the classroom door. Two eighth graders stood nearby, talking in hushed voices as though they were sharing a dangerous secret. “My cousin said they sealed it years ago,” one of them added. “People who went inside never talked about what they saw.” Mollie rolled her eyes. Her school was more than a hundred years old, so strange stories appeared all the time. There h...

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The Photograph

The first envelope arrived without a stamp. It was waiting on Geiszel’s kitchen table when she came home from work, even though she had locked the apartment that morning. Inside was a single photograph. It showed her standing outside the old lighthouse on the night her brother disappeared fifteen years ago. She had been seventeen then, soaked through by the storm, her dark hair clinging to her face. Behind her, the lighthouse rose against the black sky, its beam cutting through the rain. Geiszel stared at the photograph until the r...

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The Empty Room

The room was locked from the outside, and it held almost nothing. No windows. No furniture. No decorations. Just smooth concrete walls, a steel door without a handle on my side, and a single light humming overhead. The emptiness felt deliberate, as if someone had scrubbed away every clue that could explain why I was there. I checked my pockets for the third time. A key. A folded receipt with no writing on it. A marble the color of smoke. None of them made sense. Then the light flickered. When it steadied again, there was a chair in...

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More Than Music

Every Thursday at six, Renee unlocked the community center, switched on the lights, and arranged twelve folding chairs in a circle. People knew her as dependable. She remembered birthdays, always had extra pens, and somehow knew exactly when the coffee needed refilling. She had a habit of solving problems before anyone noticed they existed. If a table wobbled, she fixed it. If someone forgot the cookies, she quietly ran to the grocery store. Asking for help never occurred to her. In her mind, needing people and burdening them were almost t...

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