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Steffen Lettau

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2022

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48 Stories

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Black Shuck Den

Weekly Contest #346

There were three certainties in life; we are all going to be taxed, we are all going to die, and there are things in life that we know nothing about. One year ago, I learned a new certainty that is known yet not mentioned publicly, but it should. After you hear my story, maybe you will make it so. I was on vacation, which didn't start off promising. Months upon months of pushing myself and my vehicle to exhaustion just to make ends meet finally paid off, but the mind tends to forget important things when so much of the focus is on the jo...

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The Last of the First

Weekly Contest #345

Though I am putting so much into a space barely large enough for a full-grown man to fit inside of, which gives me the shudders to think about, one must remember that all of this isn't for me, it's for my great-grandkids. Yes, I'm old. You ask, "How old are you?" Let me tell you; I'm old enough to have seen the last of the nineteenth century with innocent eyes, old enough to have remembered the twentieth century through blood and tears, and to see how the twenty-first century shaped up from both. I was alive when empires fell and dystopi...

8 likes 2 comments 2
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The Lesser Evil

Weekly Contest #340

Author's Note: This story, though completely fictional, contains elements of physical child abuse. It felt like waiting for a storm. Not for it to be over, not for the eye to offer a reprieve, but anticipating nature going out of control. Gathered within the sanctum of a large building that might survive such, an audience waited patiently as a young man took his seat opposite of the host. Trevor Tumnis, an officer of the KPD, was seated opposite of Mars Samson Taffington, a host of "Local Story Dive". On this show, local suburban person...

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Bronn, but Not Forgotten

Weekly Contest #324

Author's Note: This contains descriptions that readers might find disturbing. It wasn't called "Lake Eerie" because it sounded creative. Yes, Lake Erie was a beautiful place, but it held its own secrets, from the legends of cryptids near its shores to the horror stories that many convey or covet involving ghosts and urban legends. Amongst them was a story that wasn't well known, even dismissed as impossible and unfounded. In my case, I really wished it was. The story revolves around the time when Vikings came to the shores of America. One pa...

17 likes 11 comments 11
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The Children Play at Night

Weekly Contest #321

George, the nine-year-old product of two alcoholics that met the inevitable end via semi-truck six years ago, met with Kevin and Doug, these two once having parents involved in gang wars yet only seeing the end of such from within pine boxes. Though the children would be allowed to go into the town, it was by escort for obvious safety concerns. Kevin and Doug, however, didn't subscribe to such a caution. "Three people's a crowd, but we look out for each other like brothers. You're a brother, right, George?" He knew what they meant, and he no...

15 likes 6 comments 6
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They Knew Me from the Bridge

Weekly Contest #319

These sentient creatures are a curious bunch. They gather together and yet feel alone. They develop technology yet still walk with sticks. They move upon vehicles than no longer require horses, yet they still walk. They could record with these things called "cameras", but they report more with their testimonies. I was one of those testimonies. I made my home in this nation that was building over the scars of a recent world war with great buildings that towered over streets and bridges that spanned the width of even the largest rivers. Within...

14 likes 11 comments 11
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Old Nick Comes Calling

Weekly Contest #311

His wife, Lily, had gone upstairs. His son, Rilestone, was asleep in his crib. He, Harris, was rereading Psalms while keeping an ear to the baby monitor. Such old things, he thought, but one of the more useful tools especially after the Third World War. Now that he was away from the Navy, away from the SEALs, he looked to quieter days. Well, as quiet as a family with a child could get. On the other end, he could hear the silent breathing of Rilestone. Having been born months ago, he was still getting used to his crib and his room, being alon...

9 likes 4 comments 4
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Rilestone: Jenny's Hunt

Weekly Contest #307

The flash of white hair flit between the trees as a pair of sneakers fitting for a ten-year-old boy pounded upon the dirt. Eyes of light-blue scanned the left and right directions before focusing ahead, trying to look around the many ground foliage protruding from below, either guarding potential falls or hiding places. He couldn't stop, not yet. Somewhere, out in these woods, someone was out to get him. The sound of a little girl's scream erupted unexpectedly, barely half a mile to his right. "Hanna", he whispered, and then he placed a h...

11 likes 3 comments 3
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Midaul the Merciful

Weekly Contest #261

The world of Nuoath is no stranger to the conquerors upon its surface, from the current great three of Arkos, Dhaast, and Lady Parine to the previous legends of Benrun the Brutal, the Mad Queen Sadaar, and Gianla of Goch. Amongst the most notorious of these names, the bloodthirsty and seemingly untouchable Ulynder Vadastim is one that will never be forgotten. With each conqueror, though, is their second-in-command that barely receives the same notoriety. Midaul Kannad was such a person, yet his notoriety was nowhere near the infamy of his ki...

22 likes 9 comments 9
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A Gift of Air

Weekly Contest #260

Miracle. Noun. An event regarded as impossible, attributed to luck or an act of God. A wonder.I was never a gambler. If anything, I was full of doubt, which had led me to miss out on many an opportunity. The women I had a crush upon ended up in the arms of men I considered better than me, the prizes I coveted ended up on the shelves of those I considered smarter than me. I even passed up a few jobs that could have opened doors to higher positions of higher pay, all because I never saw myself as ready to take on such responsibilities.There we...

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A Bestial, a Tarian, and a Kollom are in a Desert...

Author's Note: this is another excerpt from my book series, "Resolution". Here is a legend told by the Kin-Martoln. This legend gives us two lessons, honorable reader. Jask Tobbins, Red Company Commander of the Hard Corps, had been assigned with Rila Estenall, Green Company Lieutenant of the Stampeders, to investigate the reported movement of two forces believed to belong to Bestials and the forces under Supreme Sultan Dahst. While incursions happened between the two powers, neither came near Martoln-home for decades. Sus...

9 likes 6 comments 6
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The Hundred - Nine War

Weekly Contest #243

This is an excerpt taken from my story-in-development, "Resolution".Upon the world of Nuoath, in the year of the King of the All and Ever Six-Thousand-Thirty-Four, the tense strings between the Bestials and the Children of War were all except broken, but the Bestials of the forests of Anthrine were determined to take the militant country of Martoln even by tooth and claw. Though many a fort had been set between the two, one became pivotal and poignant.Tesdannon, the Crimson Base. An ironic name of potential infamy.The Children of War were re...

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A Glowing Goal

Weekly Contest #232

Author's note: Yes, this is inspired by Edgar Allen Poe's "Nevermore"; it is an homage to the author. There's no crow, though.Here is a Man, no longer struttin',The woods await, the silence cuttin',A tree takes light, a sign of glutton,But he starves for a different sight.Solstice arrived, his children screamin'Against a sun that once was beamin'As both arose from an ocean streamin'Oblivious to mortal human might.A Kin to Sun, Man keeps here shinin'While facing Solstice daughter's whinin'.She cuts forth like axes meant for minin'Yet Man stan...

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Rilestone's Reach

Weekly Contest #232

Author's Note: This is another excerpt from the Rilestone stories, one that is a "Part 2" of the "Rilestone: Fullfillment" short story. It has been over a week since the vision came unto Rilestone, one that raised more questions than answers even from those that were older and wiser than him. His parents could not answer for this alleged prophecy, nor his uncles or aunts, nor his cousins or friends. Even the people working at S.U.I.T (Super Uniform Individual Tactician) could only speculate; his friend, Jist, had an idea that it had to...

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Rilestone: Fulfillment

Weekly Contest #230

Author's Note: This is more an excerpt from the Rilestone Series in the works. "Thousands shall march, from near and far, Fast held the rumors of war sewn; Kin born from Four, they stay where they are, Graves paved to those they own By the blood of the Morning Star." Rilestone stood up, having kneeled in deep prayer after his training was done. It was his voice, but it had sounded distant. He felt no malevolence, no presence of any sort from an ill being. He quickly smelled the air; no, no brimstone, so no Hellhounds nearby. What about...

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