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Rebecca Lewis

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2023

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150 Stories

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Aaron's Twenty-eight Versions

I knew Aaron Powell would fail the moment he raised his hand. The room smelled like machine oil and dust, and twenty-four of us sat packed into the workshop, waiting for Professor Watne to announce who would represent the academy at the National Engineering Trials. The competition had a reputation for crushing people. Teams from wealthy schools arrived with custom equipment and years of training. We barely had enough funding to keep the lights on. Then Aaron volunteered. Not because he was talented. Because he wasn't. At least, that was what...

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The Forgotten Partner

Nobody believed in me. That was their first mistake. They said it with smiles at first. Teachers smiled when they handed back my exams. Employers smiled when they chose someone else. Investors smiled when they listened to my pitch and explained, very politely, why it would never work. I learned something about smiles. The kind that says good luck often means goodbye. For a while, I almost agreed with them. The warehouse I rented leaked when it rained. Half my equipment came from junkyards. The prototype failed so often that I started keeping...

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The Choice to Look

The ocean had already decided to keep him. At least, that's what everyone said afterward. The storm hit at 2:17 a.m. One moment, the fishing boat Maribel was riding the swells thirty miles off the coast. The next, a wall of black water rose out of the darkness and folded the vessel in half like a toy. Taylor remembered the sound more than anything. Not the thunder. Not the wind. The cracking. Wood snapping. Metal screaming. Men shouting names that vanished into the storm before anyone could answer. Then the sea swallowed everything. When Ta...

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I Carry His Bags

The kingdom's songs never mention me. They sing about Sir Jumoke the Bright, Dragon-Slayer of the West, Savior of Three Villages, Bearer of the Sunblade. Children wave wooden swords and pretend to be him. Merchants sell paintings of him. Bards argue over which of his adventures makes the best verse. Meanwhile, I carry his bags. I don't mind. Someone has to remember where the bedrolls are packed. The first time I met Jumoke, he was trying to fight a troll with a loaf of bread. Not because he thought it was a good weapon. He'd simply forgotten...

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Elyce and Professor Billany

The first time they met, neither of them spoke. Elyce sat on the roof of the old train station, legs dangling over the edge, sharpening a knife she never used. People in town thought she was dangerous because she dressed in black, walked alone, and rarely answered questions with more than a shrug. Three blocks away, Professor Nathan Billany was giving a lecture to an audience of exactly one person and a sleeping dog. "History," he announced to the empty square, "is mostly people making avoidable mistakes." The dog yawned. Elyce noticed him b...

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What the Rain Remembered

Michelle had trusted Patrick for so long that she no longer remembered what life was like before him. They had grown up in the same small coastal town. As children, they spent summers searching for shells along the beach and winters huddled together in the library after school. When Michelle's father died, Patrick was the one who sat beside her through the funeral. When Patrick's family lost their home in a storm, Michelle's mother gave them a place to stay. By the time they were adults, trust between them felt as natural as breathing. So wh...

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Message Not Delivered

March 3 MOM- Don't forget Grandma's birthday dinner at 6. SHIRAH- I know, Mom. MOM- And wear something nice. SHIRAH- Define "nice." MOM- No hoodies. 5:14 PM GRANDMA- Running late. Bus broke down. SHIRAH- Want me to pick you up? GRANDMA- No need. Walking the last few blocks. SHIRAH- It's raining. GRANDMA- I've survived worse. 7:42 PM GRANDMA- Thank you for coming tonight. SHIRAH- Of course ❤️ GRANDMA- Did I ever tell you about the blue house on Maple Street? SHIRAH- No? GRANDMA- Remind me sometime. March 8 SHIRAH- Tell me about the blu...

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Nothing Ever Vanishes

Maddie almost missed it. The snow had come early that year, swallowing the town in silence before Thanksgiving had even passed. By December, the roads were narrow tunnels carved through white banks taller than mailboxes. Most people stayed inside unless they had to leave. But Maddie liked walking after storms. At sixteen, she’d learned there were some things you couldn’t think through sitting in your bedroom. Her mother called it “wandering.” Her father called it “catching pneumonia.” Maddie called it breathing. So that Saturday morning, bun...

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Not Every Part of Him

The church smelled like lilies and wet wool. Rain had followed everyone inside, dripping from coat sleeves onto the old hardwood floors. Near the altar, beneath a spray of white carnations, sat the closed casket of Bradley Hall. A framed photograph leaned against it. Bradley at fifty, smiling too broadly beside a fishing boat nobody remembered him actually using. Rows of mourners filled the pews in uneven patches. Family near the front. Former coworkers in the middle. People from town scattered everywhere else, shifting quietly, avoiding eye...

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The Fragile Peace

The soup arrived before anyone was ready for it. A young waiter in a stiff white shirt set down six shallow bowls around the table with the careful seriousness of someone handling explosives. Steam curled upward. No one spoke until he left. Then the grandfather lifted his spoon and said, “Well. We made it.” Nobody answered that either. The dining room of the Bellmere Hotel was all low light and polished silver. Outside the tall windows, rain smeared the city into streaks of gold and gray. A piano played somewhere near the bar, soft enough to...

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The Forgotten Town

“I remember…” Kevin said, staring at the old gas station sign swaying in the wind. Dahlia looked up from the map spread across the hood of their car. “Remember what?” He hesitated. The highway around them was empty except for weeds pushing through cracked pavement. The town they were trying to find wasn’t on any modern map, but Kevin insisted it existed. “My father brought me here once,” he said quietly. “At least, I think he did.” The sun was dropping fast behind the hills. The rusted sign buzzed once, then went dark again. Dahlia folded th...

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Nothing Happened

Aisha kept every voicemail. Not just the important ones. Not just the last message from her mother before the stroke slurred her words into soft static. She kept reminders from dentists, accidental butt dials, two seconds of wind from unknown numbers. Hundreds of recordings sat on old phones stacked in labeled shoeboxes beneath her bed. She told herself it was because voices disappeared faster than photographs. The truth was simpler. If she kept something, maybe it hadn’t ended. At thirty-eight, Aisha lived alone above a locksmith’s shop in ...

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What Remained

Weekly Contest #354

By the time the grocery store closed, Sarah could tell what kind of day it had been by the carts left in the parking lot. On Fridays, families abandoned carts full of juice boxes and cereal near the minivan spaces. On Tuesdays, old men left them carefully stacked beside the corral, like they still believed in rules. Tonight there were only three carts scattered under the yellow glow of the lamps, drifting slightly whenever the wind picked up. Quiet night. Sarah pulled her jacket tighter and pushed the carts together. The metal rattled sharpl...

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Fear of the Sky

The first thing Kim saw when she stepped out of the bunker was the sky. Not gray. Not orange with ash. Blue. A clean, endless blue stretched over the ruins of the city like the world had forgotten what happened here. For a moment she just stood there squinting into the sunlight, one hand shielding her eyes, the other gripping the rusted hatch behind her. Twenty years underground, and nobody had prepared her for blue. “Is it safe?” Khasha called from below. Kim didn’t answer right away. Safe was a strange word now. The streets were cracked op...

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The Place That Kept Shaping Her

When Angie left the town, the river was frozen solid. She remembered that clearly because her father had driven her to the bus station in silence, both of them watching the white sheet of ice beside the road like it might crack open and say something neither of them could. She was nineteen then. Angry in the way only nineteen-year-olds can be. Certain that if she stayed another year in Bellweather, she would disappear into it completely. So she left. Not dramatically. No slammed doors. No final speeches. Just two duffel bags, a scholarship t...

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