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Vera N

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2024

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147 Stories

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The Mirror Hall Conspiracy

Venice, 1787It was the kind of night that made secrets feel at home. Moonlight spilled across the Grand Canal, shimmering like spilled wine. Gondolas slipped like shadows between palazzos, and laughter—thin, masked, dangerous—echoed from behind shuttered balconies. The Carnival was in full flourish, and every mask concealed a wish, a lie, or something darker.Contessa Elena Morosini stepped from her gondola onto the steps of Palazzo Gravina. A crimson harlequin mask hugged her face, delicate as lace, hiding the calculation in her eyes. Beneat...

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Ellie In The Echo

When Jonah woke, the first thing he noticed was the light.Not the buzzing flicker of the bunker’s LEDs, forever dimmed by battery rot. Not the burnt-orange haze from the firestorms that curled above the wasteland like angry ghosts. This was different. Warmer. Gentler.Sunlight.Real, golden sunlight spilled through gauzy curtains, draped across the floor like silk. The air carried the scent of lilacs and maple syrup. He lay on a bed that felt far too soft, too warm, too clean for someone who’d spent the last three years sleeping on cold concre...

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The Linden Tree Path

It’s strange, the way memory works. You can forget entire days from last week, yet remember a golden hour from years ago like it’s etched into your soul. It’s been seventeen—no, eighteen—summers since that time, and yet the scent of damp pine needles and lake water still floats into my mind when the season turns warm.I was only seven then, maybe just barely eight, but what a summer it was.It began in Luzern, nestled like a watercolor painting between the Alps and the glittering expanse of Lake Lucerne. The city was a dreamscape of steep cobb...

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Max Splat And The Snack Cart Coup

In the sleepy town of Brookhaven, where hopscotch grids faded like summer dreams and juice boxes flowed like wine, there thrived a secret society of unparalleled cunning: toddlers. Most grown-ups figured kids under three were too busy chewing crayons and announcing potty victories to cause trouble. They were wrong. Behind the curtain of Little Sprouts Daycare, beneath a fortress of plush animals and half-deflated bouncy balls, a syndicate operated with the chaos of a raccoon rave and the strategy of a spy thriller. They called themselves The...

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Family Of One

The forest opened its throat to swallow the road, and Claire drove straight into its waiting mouth. Pine and ash pressed in on either side, bending inward like they regretted letting her pass. She gripped the steering wheel harder with each mile, knuckles pale. The old house didn’t appear on the GPS, but she didn’t need directions. She remembered the turns. The weight of the air. The shape the trees made above the gravel. Lucy sat in the back, too quiet for a child. She hadn’t asked where they were going. Only once, as they passed the last r...

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Whispers Of The Haunted Typewriter

The Kárpáti DossierA recovered manuscript, author unknown. Dates uncertain.(Pages missing, some heavily redacted.) --- March 3, 1952 – Location: RedactedThey reassigned me. From a paper mill to a place called the Ministry of Unusual Affairs. The name alone sounds like a joke whispered in the halls of some secret asylum. No orientation, no briefing, just a desk in an office three floors beneath a bookshop called Lenin’s Ladders. The elevator doesn't have a button for the floor I arrived at. Someone else pressed it, or maybe it pressed itself....

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Where The Road Bends

At the intersection, I could turn right and be home by nightfall — warm bed, unread emails, a life I’d stitched back together piece by piece.But turning left would take me somewhere I’d promised never to return.The blinker clicked like a metronome to my hesitation. A hawk coasted overhead, silhouetted against the burning sky. Cicadas screamed in the trees. The air smelled like dust and memory.It had been ten years since I last saw Elmridge. Ten years since I threw a duffel into the back seat and drove off without saying goodbye — not to Jona...

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Memory's Edge

It wasn’t the silence that told me I was lost—it was how familiar everything felt when it absolutely shouldn’t have.I opened my eyes to a ceiling that looked like peeling skin, pale pink and warped with age. The light above me flickered—not a sharp flicker, but the tired twitch of a dying bulb. It buzzed like something whispering through grit, or maybe my nerves.I sat up slowly. My muscles ached in that strange way you feel after crying for hours, though I didn’t remember shedding a single tear. The bed creaked beneath me—flannel sheets, pur...

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Midnight's Unseen City

Every night at 11:13 p.m., the light in Elias Vant’s attic blinked on—and the city held its breath. The glow was soft, amber, and steady. From the cracked sidewalk across the street, it looked like a beacon. To some, it was just a quirk of an old man with strange hours. To others, it was a signal—an open eye watching from above. No one had seen Elias in daylight for years. His groceries arrived at his door without interaction. Deliveries vanished from the stoop within minutes. Even the mail carrier walked faster past the house on Welby Stree...

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The Silence Between Sentences

Claire Jensen stared at the blinking cursor on her laptop screen like it was taunting her. The white page glared back, bright as judgment. Her fingers hovered above the keys, but the thoughts dissolved the second she tried to shape them into sentences. She sat hunched in the corner of the café, hoodie sleeves stretched over her hands, a lukewarm coffee dying beside her. She couldn’t afford another one. She probably shouldn’t have bought the first. She still had two freelance pieces due that would barely cover her half of rent, but this was h...

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A Match In The Powder Room

The red countdown hit 02:59:59 as Maya Carter burst into the war room, coat dripping with rain, pulse pounding like a war drum. A storm lit up the Geneva skyline behind her, flashes of lightning mirrored in the sheen of the polished steel walls.The encrypted message waited on her terminal.OPERATION: ASHFALL Status: GREEN Strike Time: 03:00 CEST Target Zone: Grid 14-B, Northern Line Objective: Tunnel Collapse, Covert Interdiction Collateral Acceptable: YESMaya’s eyes scanned the mission summary, bile rising in her throat.They’re going to coll...

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Cracks and Creations

Golden sunlight poured through the towering west-facing windows of The Clay Hearth, a modest but magnetic pottery studio nestled between a vintage bookstore and a florist dripping in ivy on Maple Row. Inside, the scent of damp clay clung to the air, laced with a hint of lavender and kiln smoke. Dust motes drifted like enchanted snowflakes, catching light as they danced through the open beams. Shelves bowed under the weight of eccentric student projects: teetering vases, bowls with bold, defiant shapes, and mugs whose handles curled like slee...

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A Voice Beyond The Storm

Weekly Contest #303

Late Autumn, 1987 — Coastal MaineBy day, the ocean mist crept up the harbor streets like a memory you couldn’t outrun. It clung to the weather-beaten docks and rusted chains, wrapping everything in a salty chill that seeped deep into your bones. By night, the foghorn sang through the dark like a warning no one listened to—low and mournful, cutting through the thick damp air, a lonely echo in a town that had long since forgotten how to dream.My name’s Mara Harlan. Boat mechanic. Part-time salvage diver. Daughter to a man who vanished into a l...

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Between Yesterday and Goodbye

The last time Sam saw Grandpa Ray, the old man lay still beneath a quilt stitched with red cardinals and faded army patches. His hands were paper-thin and mottled. His voice had gone two days before, but his eyes still flickered when Sam, now twenty-five, leaned close and whispered, “I’ll fix it, okay?”There was a quiet desperation in that glance — like Grandpa was passing on more than just a goodbye. Like he was leaving Sam a burden wrapped in hope. Sam swallowed hard, knowing this wasn’t just about machines or memories. It was something he...

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Drip, Drip, Gone

Leah Carter wasn’t the kind of girl people noticed. She liked it that way. Quiet corners, oversized hoodies, and earbuds in—those were her shields from a world that never seemed to understand her. Her locker, 213, was one of the few consistent things in her life. Far from the bustling main halls of Crestwood High, it sat tucked between two support pillars in the neglected west wing—a hallway that smelled faintly of mold and old paint. She liked it there. Nobody bothered her. Until Tuesday. She arrived early, like always, slipping down the si...

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