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Weekly Contest #337
The wardens were watching you from the courtyard entrance, though why they did so was unknown, seeing as the buildings blocked you in on all sides. You could see them talking to each other—one a large man, the other a petite girl no bigger than the post of a fence. Your hands trembled in your lap. From rage, from grief, from a hurt so deep that it caused the joints of your hands to burn. The worst part was that when you tried to think of a reason why you felt this way, all that came up was a void. Like someone had removed vital piec...
Weekly Contest #334
Jan 14th Nakai has long since been dormant, save for the ghostly apparitions that crawl along its blackened sides. Of course, it is difficult to believe Johnny’s ghost stories on the best of days, but I will admit that even in a drunken stupor, the man knows how to spin a tale. I had never heard of Nakai Mountain, though to my credit, I do not leave home much nowadays. It has been many years since I explored the world, so I thought perhaps this place was a new discovery. Johnny was having another one of his fits, the kind ...
Weekly Contest #253
Summer in the South means the air becomes laden with pollen, sweat, and pregnant rain clouds. Ominous darkness was barely hidden behind the tall evergreen trees that made up the forest behind our house. The faint scent of pine mixed with that of petrichor. A week's worth of rain had saturated the ground. Every footfall sunk into the mud and was quickly followed by a squelching suck as I moved forward. We only had a few moments before the next storm would roll through. As pointless as it was to try painting a house in the middle of bad weathe...
Weekly Contest #240
The air on the vessel is thick; with each breath, the heat of the sea invades the lungs and taints the ridges of the throat. A woman, too young to be a child but too old to be beautiful, sits at the bow of the fishing boat, her feet nestled underneath her splintered seat. Behind her, struggling to stand against the vicious coastal air, a man pulls at two ropes connected to the boat’s sail. It’s patchy and discolored from years at sea. With each gust of wind, the yellowing fabric undulates, pulsating feverishly. The woman grips the boat's si...
Weekly Contest #237
The world ended on Valentine’s Day, leaving the destroyed strip mall bathed in pink and white decorations. Roses that had once been carefully pruned now drooped in their vases, some of them completely deteriorating into piles of dusty petals. Songbirds would dart through the broken windows, grabbing colorful streamers and confetti to add to their nests. Emile sat behind the register, watching a bright red cardinal hop along the counter. He had only just woken up himself. It would be a few more minutes before his brain would decide to fully t...
Weekly Contest #235
Torrential rains poured from the sky, obscuring the gravel road in a mist of white. Nadia’s sneakers sank into the ground as she ran. Her hair clung to her skin, its brown color darkening to a pitch black. She had no umbrella or coat. She was forced to blink the ice-cold raindrops from her eyes. But she didn’t have time to sit under a tree and wait out the storm. This would be her only time to escape. So, Nadia clenched her teeth, tightened her grip on her backpack straps, and kept runnin...
Weekly Contest #232
CW: This story contains themes of suicide and suicidal ideation. Read only if you are in a good place. The suicide hotline is 988.The room was filled with the smell of metal and the rushing torrents of blood swirling around infinitesimal tubes. There was a pounding in every space, a rhythmic thump that was both harsh and soft, beautiful and overwhelming. Mucus, bile, and fluid invaded every millimeter of the void. Everything was covered in warm liquid. Electricity danced across the tubes and wires and muscles, carrying information across the...
Weekly Contest #230
CW: This story contains elements of child kidnapping. The following is a collection of missing children’s reports found on the back of milk cartons. All reports were being investigated by the Marble County Sheriff’s Office and the Penny Hill Police Department. Blanks indicate missing information that was illegible. [A picture of a young boy wearing a blue and white striped shirt. His teeth are crooked and yellowed. Brown hair is cut short. In the background of the picture are the torsos of two adults, their heads cropped off.] Thomas O...
Weekly Contest #227
Lucy had been organizing the return rack of clothes when a child squealed at a frequency only dogs should have been able to hear. Working in retail, she knew that it usually meant one of two things. The first was that they had somehow managed to find a way to tear open one of the toy packages in the back of the store and were currently having the time of their life bashing Barbie’s brain into the linoleum floor. But the scream was coming from the front door, so perhaps this was one of the few times that she should go investigate. She relucta...
Weekly Contest #216
It was bad enough that AI had overthrown humanity. It was even worse that Harri had to work in retail for them. He was on his knees, scrubbing the linoleum floor with a sponge that had long since lost its bright yellow color. He tried to ignore his boss’s eyes on him as he dunked the sponge into a bucket of soapy water. If he let up his cleaning regimen for even a moment, Robo-Boss would be on him in an instant. Harri had no idea why people thought robots couldn’t express emotions because his boss was the moodiest AI on this side of the co...
Weekly Contest #211
The large rectangular windows were speckled with spiderweb-like cracks. Years of heavy snow and brutal winds had battered the library walls and left a few gaping holes in the plaster. Pieces of the green wallpaper had begun to peel, revealing dark brown trails of rotting wood. Bookshelves had toppled over, sending their precious cargo careening into the floor. Those books, their pages faded from exposure to the elements and their bindings snapped on impact, carpeted the floor. You could only imagine the mess Duste Bunni had to wade through ...
Weekly Contest #209
When Tabby imagined going to heaven, she had envisioned a golden staircase leading her toward the perfect sky, with angels and saints greeting her every step of the way. So she didn’t understand why she was walking along what looked to be a desert road. A tumbleweed danced by her feet as she continued to walk down the straight, sandy path. The road wasn’t packed enough to support her weight. With every step, she sank into the sand. Without her walking stick, she feared it would only be a matter of time before she fell. If that wasn’t bad en...
Shortlisted for Contest #207 ⭐️
CW: The story includes elements of child harm and child death. A brief sentence alludes to predatory acts on a child but was kept as brief as possible. The first word that came out of your one-year-old mouth was ‘cut’, though it probably sounded more like ‘cuh’ to the production staff around you. Daddy liked to yell it to his small studio, and you echoed him as a black and white board was slammed together in front of a camera. Your daddy leaped from his chair when he noticed y...
Weekly Contest #194
Worn boots trudged through the fresh mud. It clung to the laces and wiggled its way into the hole near Barnaby’s left sole. He tried his best to ignore the raindrops striking at his face and tried to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. Beads of water ran down his glasses. They returned seconds later, no matter how much he tried to swipe them away. He didn’t dare complain, though. His mother would scold him if she heard another peep out of his mouth. Barnaby could only grit his teeth, hoist his pack over his shoulder, and continu...
Weekly Contest #186
“Good morning, everyone! I do hope you are having a wonderful prep week. I managed to stop by a few classrooms today, and wow! You guys have really stepped it up this year, I gotta say. We sure have improved your classroom setups. I was just talking to Tammy Belford about her putting tennis balls on the ends of those chairs in the lab. We didn’t really have the budget for new tile, so I for one am glad our kids won’t be scratching up the floors this year!” “Now before we get into the changes to the handbook, I want to introduce some of the ...
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