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Tori Routsong

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Dec, 2019

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188 Followers
24 Following

37 Stories

1123 karma pts

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The Quest for Ibuprofen

Weekly Contest #52

The snow sticks to my pyjama pants—I knew I should’ve put on jeans, but my bones just ache so much. I fumble with the car keys, which feel unduly clumsy between my fingers. I should’ve just stuck out the fever at home. The parking lot is bare, with only my car and a small pickup truck, but there are lights on in the grocery store so I suppose they’re still open. The employees must park in the back, I guess. The wind blows faster, cutting through my ratty sweatshirt. If I’d known there was going to be a blizzard I wouldn’t have risked dri...

20 likes 3 comments 3
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The Fate of the Second Daughter

Weekly Contest #48

“Eldest sister?” Bernice looked down at her little sister, whose big brown eyes were, as always, brimming with unbridled curiosity. “Yes?” “Do you know where Father is?” The eight-year-old scrambled up onto a chair next to her sister, peering hungrily at the figs that Bernice had halved for herself. Bernice sighed, and pushed the plate towards her sister. “Go nuts.” “Thanks!” With a gap-toothed grin, Bernice watched as her sister pulled a jar of honey out of her pocket. Clever kid, she thought. She’d planned to steal those figs before...

23 likes 6 comments 6
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Love's Letter

Weekly Contest #47

The coffee has grown cold in the time since you started the Keurig and proceeded to forget about the coffee entirely. You look down in disgust—nothing worse than cold coffee. You take a sip anyway, grimacing as it pours down your throat. If Jules were still here, she’d tell you to put a little milk, ice and vanilla in there and give it a swirl and it’d be good as new.Jules isn’t here anymore though. You take another sip of bitter, cold coffee.The walk from the kitchen to your computer seems even longer now that you can hear your bare feet sl...

27 likes 2 comments 2
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You've Got Time

Weekly Contest #44

Marcellus looked up at Mt. Vesuvius, looming over the city like a gentle giant, protecting their city. He tightened his grip around his younger brother and wished he could fill his brother with the mountain’s strength. “It’ll be good again,” he said. His dog, Dorcea, whined, and put her chin on Crispus’s foot. Crispus sniffed and rubbed his eyes. “I know, but… I can’t believe that she’s gone.” “Crispus… Kiddo, she left two months ago. I thought you were doing better.” Marcellus bit his lip. Crispus had always been over emotional, but this...

28 likes 4 comments 4
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Into the Crawlspace

Weekly Contest #43

“You—what?”Quentin sighed and readjusted his grip on the tree branch. “For the last time, I found a giant stone fox statue in the crawlspace behind my closet and I don’t know how to get it out on my own and I can’t fall asleep with it there because there’s a hole in my closet from that time that we locked Quade in there back in seventh grade.”“So? There’s still a door for the crawlspace, right? Ergo, no problem,” Alexander slurred. He rubbed his eyes and looked up to where the stars would be if it wasn’t for all the light pollution. It was f...

25 likes 10 comments 10
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Sisterly Love

Weekly Contest #42

“Beth, please! Don’t do this! Magic shouldn’t be used like this, you can’t bring her back, you—” “Can’t I?” Beth casts a snide grin at me before looking back at her computer. “No, you can’t! I asked Mal, and he—” “Mal is a child. He never knew the whole of what this power could do.” I squirm. I have to crane my neck at such a severe angle to see Beth from my vantage point of strapped to the floor that it hurts my neck and eyes both. “Only one person has ever succeeded, and they only—” “They only brought the target back for seventeen minutes...

38 likes 14 comments 14
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Miss Defay's French Lessons

Weekly Contest #32

Emmerson flinched as the cashier reached out with the change. “Your change is three sixty-three, and I’ll have those out to you in just a second.” “Thanks,” Emmerson murmured. Rubbing the palms of his hand with his thumb nervously, he sat down at the table across from the coffee stall and avoided eye contact with the other customers. If he had his phone this wouldn’t be a problem, but the Holly Circlet hated technology so. Emmerson popped his knuckles, lost in thought, and jumped when the barista called “Hot ginger tea, an iced Mint-to-be ...

14 likes 2 comments 2
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Where to Find Baking Soda at 2 AM

Weekly Contest #31

The mattress itself is stained, but I suppose I’ll deal with that later. Taking care only to touch the dry parts of the sheet, I wrestle it and the pillowcases into a laundry basket and carefully pick my way out of the room—the police said it was okay to move stuff around now, they’ve got what they needed, but I still feel like I shouldn’t disturb anything. Except the sheets, I guess. The hallways are quiet. The usual parties that rock our dorm ended abruptly when the cops arrived, but by now they would’ve ended anyway. Everyone retreated b...

17 likes 2 comments 2
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A Spring Breeze in Winter

Weekly Contest #30

Corina woke up and her sheets, damp with cold sweat, clung to her body. Her dream still swam in her vision—the dizzying vertigo from the view off the bridge started to turn her stomach. She’d woken up right as she’d jumped, and yet she could still feel the wind on her face as she’d fallen. Her ragged breath echoed around the barren apartment. She couldn’t still her heartbeat, and she looked around wildly for Shoebox before remembering that she’d dropped her cat off at her new home yesterday before—wait, before what? As Corina closed her eye...

17 likes 4 comments 4
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A Stranger in the Woods

Weekly Contest #29

        Adelphie played with her food, pushing bits of potato around her plate with her fork. “I know his mother is the best Healer in the palace. That doesn’t mean I should marry him.” A particularly fat pigeon alighted on her wrist and rubbed his head on her thumb in support.               Her mother sighed. “Del, I told you to keep that thing off the table.”           &nb...

12 likes 1 comment 1
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Evelyn's Gone Mad and I Feel Fine

Weekly Contest #27

“Pirates? Like in Peter Pan?” “Well, technically pirate. Singular. Just one. A girl.” “A girl pirate?” “She says her name is Anne.” Evelyn fidgeted uncomfortably, pulling at her skirt. “I didn’t know there were girl pirates.” “Well, there were. At least two, anyway. Anne tells me that she had a friend called Mary and they were pirates together on the sea.” I tore into the scone Evelyn had given me with unladylike vigor so I’d have time to process this. The only pirates I’d ever seen were the mustachioed men from that Peter Pan play I saw ...

12 likes 0 comments 0
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A Lose/Lose Situation

Weekly Contest #27

My husband slams the table, surprising the doctor and I both. “You’re lying to us!” To her credit, the oncologist doesn’t flinch as he leans towards her. “I know this must come as a big shock.” “We came here to help her depression and now you’re telling me she’s got a tumor in her head? Her head doesn’t even hurt!” I’m the her, and I suppose I should be advocating for myself, but I’m so shocked that I don’t particularly want to speak. There can’t be a tumor in my head. I came to the doctor because my therapist said I should seek medication. ...

8 likes 0 comments 0
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Tendu, Tombé, et Brisé: Bina's New Dance

Weekly Contest #26

“Plié, and straight. Make a window, and shut. Feet together, and straight” Bina looked down at the remnants of her term paper, marked profusely in red. Biology hadn’t been this hard in high school, had it? She only had two days to fix this, and she was supposed to have Mommy and Me time with her daughter after class tomorrow, so now really was the best time to do any of the edits. To make matters worse, she couldn’t get her old warmup out of her head and it flowed through her body and her toes itched to get up and dance again. She sighed in...

11 likes 0 comments 0
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An Uncertain Future

Shortlisted for Contest #25 ⭐️

The ground isn’t burned beneath your feet. It makes sense that it wouldn’t be—the bombs never came here—but the grass under your toes is deceptive. You sigh, and put your shoes back on. You’ll never admit it, but your mom is right. There’s too much broken glass left over from the riots.Nobody thought it would come here—there hadn’t been a war on American soil since… well, the Civil War, you suppose. Nobody was expecting it, at least. And in true American fashion, the backlash caused uproar throughout the city. More people had been killed by ...

24 likes 4 comments 4
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Lylia, Malou, and the Intangible Impossibility of Imperceivable Physics

Shortlisted for Contest #24 ⭐️

“Dr. Niwwel, if you summoned the thing, why can’t you just send it away?” Lylia held her tongue. It wasn’t that Malou was stupid, and most of the time it wouldn’t even bother her, but she was running out of ways to explain an unexplainable being. “I didn’t summon it. I just created a way for it to access our world.” She peaked out at the dark hallway—the problem was there was no precedent. Did it matter if there was light? Could the creature even see light? And would staying quiet even matter? Lylia stroked her long, blonde hair as she thoug...

39 likes 14 comments 14
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