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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2024
Submitted to Contest #332
The first time I noticed it, I told myself it was a coincidence. I stepped off the bus and the sky, which had been pale and empty all morning, darkened as if remembering something it had forgotten. Rain came down in a thin, indecisive sheet—not enough to soak, just enough to register. I stood there, backpack slipping on my shoulder, watching the pavement freckle. A woman beside me sighed. “Of course.”By the time I reached my apartment, the rain had stopped. The clouds thinned. Sunlight returned, embarrassed. I forgot about it.— The second ti...
Submitted to Contest #331
The parcel shouldn’t have been there.That was the first thought.It was a Thursday, and winter had finally taken the city by the throat. Snow drifted sideways past my fifth-floor window, catching in frantic spirals before sticking to the glass. I came home from the late shift at the bookstore, kicked the front door shut with my heel, and dropped my bag with a thud that echoed down the narrow hallway.I was halfway to the kitchen when I saw it: a small dark shape sitting on the outside of my living-room window ledge.My building doesn’t have bal...
Submitted to Contest #319
The villagers said the creature’s breath stank of rot, that its claws could gut a man before he finished a prayer, and that it had never once seen the sun without longing to extinguish it. They said many things, as villagers do, but none of them had walked far enough into the pine-choked hollow to see the beast with their own eyes. Only children wandered close. They were braver—or stupider—than their parents, and they loved to test their courage. They’d leave pebbles at the mouth of the hollow, or dead birds, or the waxy stubs of candles sto...
Submitted to Contest #306
Text Message Thread – October 14, 2023 – 9:14 PM Alice: Did you get the keys? Nate: Yeah. Front desk guy looked at me weird though. Alice: He always looks at everyone like that. Just ignore him. Nate: The place looks… untouched. Alice: Don’t go in the attic. Seriously. Nate: You’re joking? Alice: I’m not. Just don’t. Voicemail – October 14, 2023 – 11:58 PM From: Nate EverlyHey, um… I know you said not to go in the attic but—okay, I went in.There’s this old trunk. It’s not locked. There’s a recorder in it. Like, a tape recorder?And photos. ...
Submitted to Contest #304
During the day, Clara Gray was a husk. She’d sit at her desk in the cramped apartment she called her studio, the blinds half-drawn against the assault of sunlight, sipping stale coffee and staring at a blinking cursor. Her laptop, an old silver model with a dented corner and one stubborn key, hummed with an eager desperation she couldn’t match. The world outside pulsed with life—laughter in the alley, dogs barking, car horns and bicycles—but inside, everything was static.Her agent called once a week, always chirping with forced optimism.“How...
Submitted to Contest #303
Let them call me the villain. I’ll wear it like a title.They will sing about her, not me.She was the golden one. Born under a comet, kissed by prophecy, she had the people’s love before she could speak. I came three years earlier, during a storm. No songs. No prophecy. Just silence, and a nursemaid who flinched at my cry.There are no ballads for shadows.The court adored her. Elira. Even her name sounded delicate. She giggled, they clapped. She wept, they trembled. She made promises she didn’t know how to keep. I watched from the edge, where ...
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