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Rebecca Lewis

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2023

Stories (397)

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Library

25 Followers

24 Following

397 Stories

680 karma pts

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After the Burning

The smoke rose in thin, crooked ribbons, black against the pale morning sky. The barn leaned sideways like it was tired of standing. Ash clung to the grass. The air stank of burnt hay and something sharper — oil, maybe.Michael sat on the overturned water trough, hands raw from beating at the flames with a useless wool blanket. His sister, Sarah, stood in front of him, still clutching the tractor keys, knuckles white. Neither spoke. The fire’s crackle was gone, replaced by the faint hiss of damp embers.Finally, Sarah said, “This is all my fau...

1 like

A Weapon Made of Silence

Katie did not kill him. She pressed her back against the wall, every muscle strung tight as wire, while the man’s footsteps dragged past. His laugh - slurred, ugly - hung in the air like smoke. The shadow inside her hissed, claws raking along her ribs, aching for blood. It didn’t retreat. It never did.Weeks blurred into one another. At work, Katie typed until her fingers cramped, eyes locked on screens that paid too little to keep her brother alive. Nights were worse. She sat by his hospital bed, listening to the shallow rhythm of his breath...

2 likes

Fragments of Kindness

The villagers called it the Mireling. They said it had teeth like knives, eyes like burning coals, and a voice that could rot marrow. They nailed charms to their doors, left bowls of salt at crossroads, and whispered prayers whenever the swamp mist rolled too thick.But the Mireling never hurt them. It watched.It lived in the black water, slipping between reeds and shadows. Its body was not built for beauty — its skin gleamed slick and gray, its limbs too long, its jaw too crooked. When it tried to smile, the curve looked like a wound. And wh...

3 likes

The Coin

The bus always felt like a holding cell. Metal walls, stale air, faces dulled by exhaustion. Sara boarded every evening at the same stop, after the long fluorescent grind of her office job. She’d grip the pole, sway with the jerks of the road, and try not to breathe too deeply.Tonight, though, something was different.When the doors hissed open at Main and Fifth, a man climbed aboard who looked like he’d walked out of an old photograph. His suit was dated — not vintage stylish, just worn-out, wrong somehow. The jacket sagged at the shoulders,...

2 likes

Echoes in the Chamber

The council chamber throbbed with voices — angry, proud, self-important. Men in tailored suits flung papers across tables. Women in sharp blazers jabbed fingers in the air. Everyone wanted to be the one holding the steering wheel of the city.At the back of the room, half-shadowed against the wall, Ann polished her glasses with a soft square of cloth. She looked like someone’s aunt who had wandered in by mistake, cardigan sleeves rolled to the elbow, a thermos of weak tea at her side. No one noticed her unless they needed a signature on the m...

3 likes

The Silent Role

The play had been running for nearly an hour before anyone noticed the butler. He wasn’t in the program. He wasn’t in the script. His role, if it could be called one, was to drift in, pour a glass of wine, straighten the drapes, then vanish again. And yet, he stole the stage. Not through lines, but through knowing silences. He lingered a moment too long when someone lied. He polished silver with a sigh that made the villain seem small. He brushed crumbs from the tablecloth no one had eaten from. He plucked lint from the baron’s coat as thoug...

4 likes

Ribbon Frayed

Evan sat on the edge of his bed, the desk lamp casting a weak yellow pool. Across from him, the medals hung in a crooked line. Ribbons dulled. Silver discs fractured with light. Once he had polished them, proud. Now they looked less like trophies than parts — stamped plates, cold as coins cut from a press. He reached for one — a track medal, second place at state. Ribbon frayed. Metal icy. He turned it in his hand, listening to the scrape against his nails. A sound like teeth on glass. Like a gear slipping its catch. A token of being almost...

4 likes

Applause in the Ribs

The Bow at the Edge of the Stage Randy’s hands wouldn’t stop trembling. He pressed them to the iron’s handle anyway, forcing creases into a suit that wasn’t his. Steam curled up in pale ghosts. The hotel desk wobbled under the board until he jammed a folded magazine beneath one leg. Josh’s cologne had already seeped into the fabric — sharp as pencil shavings and winter.“Don’t scorch it,” Josh called from the bathroom, voice bouncing off tile and the hiss of the shower.“You burn it, you buy it,” Randy muttered. He set the iron on its heel...

4 likes

No Safe Choice Part One

The café smelled faintly of burnt sugar and wet wool. Rain had driven most people inside, and the fogged windows blurred the street into a watercolor. Jess stirred her coffee though she had already drowned it in milk. The motion was mechanical — something to keep her hands steady.She didn’t notice the shadow that fell across her table until someone slid into the seat opposite.“Don’t you remember me?”Her hand froze on the spoon. The voice was softer than she remembered, but the tilt of the man’s smile was the same — half-charming, half-danger...

2 likes

The Black Curtain Incident (Official Case File 24-11789)

OFFICIAL REPORT- ARCADIA COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE Case Number- 24-11789Date- October 13, 2024Reporting Officer- Deputy Sheriff J. Potash Location- State Highway 46, Mile Marker 113, Arcadia County, NVIncident Type- Traffic Accident/Anomalous Occurrence INITIAL RESPONSE At approximately 0206 hours, the Sheriff’s Office received multiple emergency calls reporting a major traffic accident involving no fewer than twelve vehicles on State Highway 46. Callers claimed that a portion of the highway had “disappeared.” Deputies arrived on the scene...

1 like

She Didn't Board

The woman was waiting at the bus stop, tapping her foot against the cracked pavement. The air had that heavy quiet before a storm, though the sky was clear. Even the birds had gone silent, as if the world were holding its breath. She glanced at her watch — late again — and muttered under her breath, more to the empty street than to herself.“Don’t take the next one.”The voice was so soft she thought it was her imagination, just a trick of her restless mind. But when she turned, there was a man sitting on the bench she swore had been empty a m...

2 likes

Moments Unfolding

The Hourglass Gift Desiree found the hourglass in her grandmother’s attic, tucked between brittle books and a trunk of dresses that smelled like rain-soaked velvet. The glass was flawless, the sand inside pale as moonlight — and when she tipped it over, the world seemed to pause.At first it was subtle- the whirring of cicadas cut mid-song, the rustle of the oak outside frozen mid-sway. Then came the pull, as though the attic itself folded inward. Desiree blinked, and she was standing in the same attic fifty years earlier, her grandmother...

3 likes

The Brother’s Face

Ani had long since stopped searching crowds for her brother’s face. Three years was enough time for the instinct to dull, to sink into the ache she carried only in quiet moments. Still, on the subway platform that Wednesday morning, when the man turned his head just slightly, she nearly dropped her coffee.It wasn’t just the cheekbones or the dark hair in need of trimming. It was the tilt of the jaw, the way his shoulders slouched against the metal pole, even the small scar at the edge of his eyebrow — an echo of the one Arthur had gotten whe...

3 likes

What the Bottle Remembers Part 1

The library always smelled faintly of dust and paper, as though the walls themselves were built from forgotten years. Lavanya loved it for that reason — timeless, safe, a place where secrets could settle into silence and never be disturbed.That late afternoon, sunlight poured through tall windows, striping the tables in gold. Stillness lay heavy, broken only by the turning of pages and the faint creak of shelves that had borne their burdens for generations. Lavanya slipped into the farthest corner, clutching her backpack as though it carried...

1 like

The Smile She Kept

The Smile on Every Screen Belinda Jasmine never wore her own smile. The one the world knew — on billboards, perfume ads, glossy spreads — was practiced, luminous, a smile that turned strangers into believers. Her real one — crooked, too quick, a little lopsided — almost never left her apartment.By thirty-three, she was the most recognizable face in New York. Not a movie star, but a lifestyle brand. The tabloids called her “the last true socialite,” though she was the daughter of a schoolteacher and a dental hygienist from Ohio. She had b...

4 likes

Author bio

I love. I don’t do things halfway, and I don’t know how to be detached when something matters to me. When I commit, I’m all in — even when it costs me, even when I know it might hurt. I notice everything- shifts in tone, small details, when something feels off. Once I see it, I can’t unsee it. I need things to mean something. I don’t skim through life or people. I sit with feelings, replay moments, question narratives, and refuse to accept easy answers just to be comfortable. I don’t trust tidy moral stories or authority for its own sake. I’m drawn to darker, moodier art because it feels honest — it doesn’t pretend everything is okay when it isn’t. I’m grieving, and that’s real, but it isn’t all of who I am. I’m loyal to my core, aware, creative, and honest. I don’t want platitudes or surface-level fixes. I want the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable. I loved hard. I lost hard. And I’m still here. Bruised, human, and stronger than I give myself credit for.