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Rebecca Lewis

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2023

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61 Followers
60 Following

150 Stories

1551 karma pts

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On the Other End

Every night at 11:47, the phone rang. Jeff never answered it on the first ring. He let it ring twice, always twice, the way he’d been trained. On the third ring, he picked up and said, “Emergency response. What’s your location?” Sometimes there was screaming. Sometimes crying. Sometimes just breathing, fast and panicked, like the caller was running out of air and hoped Jeff had some to spare. He took the calls calmly. He followed the script. He stayed on the line until help arrived or until the line went dead. That was the job. Tonight felt ...

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The Quiet Between Alarms

I’m the smoke detector in the hallway. People think I only exist to scream at them. I see everything from the ceiling. That’s the advantage of being ignored. No one looks up unless I’m loud, and by then it’s already too late. I notice the small things first. The way the father pauses before opening the bedroom door at night, listening to make sure no one’s crying. The way the mother always burns toast when she’s pretending she’s not stressed. The kid practices apologies out loud when he thinks he’s home alone. He never is. I smell moods befo...

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Chance

On the day the town lost its post office cat, the mail still arrived on time. That mattered to Mrs. Powers, who stood by her window every morning at 10:07, purse on her arm, waiting for the truck. She said it was for the coupons, but everyone knew she just liked to wave. The cat’s name was Oliver. He’d shown up years earlier with one torn ear and the confidence of someone who had already decided where he belonged. He slept on outgoing parcels, supervised stamp purchases, and once chased a raccoon out the back door like it was part of his job...

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A Reason to Open

The bell over the door rang the way it always did, thin and hopeful, like it still believed someone might come in just to browse. Julie looked up from the counter and waited. The waiting had become part of the job. Not just for customers, but for a reason to keep the place open another day. The shop was narrow and long, with shelves that bowed slightly from the weight of years. Used paperbacks leaned into hardcovers. Handwritten notes were tucked into spines. Someone long ago had penciled prices on the first page of every book, careful and n...

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A Small Window

The smell caught her before the thought did. Burnt sugar, a little bitter at the edges, floating up from the street-level bakery as Ondrea waited for the crosswalk light to change. She hadn’t planned to stop. She was late. Her phone buzzed again in her pocket. Still, her feet slowed, then stopped. It smelled like caramel that had gone a second too far. Not candy-sweet. Something darker. Almost apologetic. Her stomach tightened. Not hunger. Recognition. She closed her eyes without meaning to, and suddenly she was twelve again, standing on a c...

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The Mug with the Chip

I put the kettle on because it’s the only part of the morning that still listens to me. The kitchen is quiet except for the tick of the clock and the dull hum of the fridge. Outside, the sky is the color of a bruise that hasn’t decided what it’s going to be yet. I lean against the counter and watch the kettle, willing it to hurry, as if heat works faster when you stare it down. Yesterday’s mug sits in the sink, a brown ring dried to the inside like evidence. I rinse it out, run my thumb along the chip in the rim. I remember when it happened....

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The Shape of a Near-Miss

The bus stop was empty except for me and a man whispering angrily into his phone. It was late enough that the cold had teeth. The kind of night where the city feels hollowed out, every sound bouncing too far. I was counting cracks in the pavement to stay awake when he ended the call and looked straight at me, like he’d been aware of me the whole time. “Sorry,” he said. “Do you know if the 14 still runs after midnight?” I shook my head. “I think it’s done for the night.” He exhaled, slow and tired, and dragged a hand down his face. Up close, ...

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Final Entry

The book came to me the way rot does. Quiet. Patient. Already working before I noticed the smell. It was waiting on my kitchen table when I got home from work, wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. No return address. No postage marks. Just my name written in ink that looked too dark, almost bruised into the paper. I stood in the doorway for a long time, keys still in my hand. I lived alone. The landlord did inspections, sure, but he never left gifts. I considered the obvious options. Prank. Mistake. A friend I’d forgotten. I told mysel...

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Where Sound Carries

On the morning the river went down, Nick Kierpiec missed the bus on purpose. He told himself it was because the sky looked different after a flood, scrubbed and pale like a plate rinsed too clean. He told himself he wanted to walk the long way along Front Street and see what the water had left behind. Both of those things were true. But if he was honest, he also wanted to delay the day. He wanted to stand still for a bit before the town decided what it was going to do with him next. The bus hissed away from the curb and took its diesel breat...

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One Second Late

Weekly Contest #338

I opened the book because it was the only thing left in the room that hadn’t tried to warn me away. The cover was plain, dark blue, no title. It smelled faintly of dust and something sharper, like metal. As soon as the first page lifted, the house went quiet. No creaking pipes. No wind in the trees outside. Even the old clock in the hall stopped ticking, right between seconds. The first line was written in my handwriting. If you’re reading this, you already waited too long. I flipped the page. My pulse thudded in my ears. Each paragraph desc...

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Unmarked

The planet had no name anymore. The maps called it K-317, but maps only mattered to people who planned to return. Names were for places that expected visitors. Histories. Futures. This world had been reduced to coordinates and warnings in small print, unless they were desperate. Or very well paid. Once, it had been something else. It must have been. No one built domes and towers and schools on a world they never bothered to name. The designation came later, after the evacuation, after the reports were filed and stamped and buried under newer...

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The Search

He begins with the map, though he knows better. It is an old road map folded so many times the creases have turned white and soft, like fabric rubbed thin. The ink has bled in places. Town names blur into rivers. Rivers fade into nothing. Still, he spreads it on the small kitchen table each morning as if it might tell him something new. The kettle whistles. He turns it off. The sound feels too sharp for the hour. Outside, the light is pale and undecided, not quite morning, not quite the night letting go. This is the time he always wakes now,...

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The Machines Turn

Weekly Contest #337

Kat kept her phone on mute because the world was loud enough already, but she kept the screen face-up like it was a tiny altar. Every few minutes it lit up with nothing — no new messages, no missed calls — just the soft blue glow of possibility. At 2:17 a.m. her time, she got used to the quiet in a way that felt like learning a new language with no teacher. She had started categorizing silences. There was the “sleeping” silence, sweet and forgiving, like a cat curled on your feet. There was the “busy” silence, the kind you could forgive beca...

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The Cost of Correction

She can rewind time. Not in the dramatic way people imagine. There’s no bright flash, no sound like a tape screeching backward. It feels more like holding your breath and stepping sideways. The world softens, loosens, and then slides back to where it was a moment ago. At first, she only rewound a few seconds. A dropped mug before it shattered. A word she wished she hadn’t said. She’d feel a pressure change behind her eyes, like stepping into a different room, the pressure in her chest, and then everything would be righted. Clean. Corrected. ...

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Start Differently

Weekly Contest #336

Akshita found the line in the notebook three days after the accident. The notebook had survived everything. The spill of coffee in February. The rainstorm in April when she’d run for the bus and slipped, scraping her knee and her pride. Even the move, when it had been tossed into a box labeled “MISC — DO NOT LOSE” and then promptly ignored for two weeks. The notebook was blue, soft at the corners, warped in a way that suggested loyalty. She opened it expecting lists. Groceries. Call Mom. Finish draft. What she found instead was a sentence wr...

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