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Follow a character who’s looking for someone or something.

Posted in Character on Nov 29, 2024

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✍️ 51 stories

The Albatross from the Ocean's Heart Meets the Ship Destiny's Dreams

Submitted to Contest #279

The circle of life was sweet.Each pink glow of morning led to a day of seafaring, gathering food on the islands, and meeting by the firesides for meals, tales, songs, and dances.The little girl named Lani and the boy called Kai played with the other children in the tropical forest, chasing each other through the trees, and swimming in the sea.Overhead the twelve foot wingspan of an albatross often soared.The mythic tales about Lani and Kai were discovered over a hundred years later.A saltwater stained journal from the clipper ship called Des...

46 likes 21 comments 21
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Foxholes

Shortlisted for Contest #279 ⭐️

Missing in action.  That’s what they said. A phrase so indefinite- I can imagine him walking back through the cloud of smoke and snowfall and slinking back into our foxhole to tell me all about it. A phrase which always invites questions in my mind. Is he still walking? Does he know I’m still waiting?  I’m sure he’d laugh at how I’ve turned out.  I still see him. In dreams, in drunken stupors, mistaken in strangers. He’s never aged as I have, no joint pain or creases, he isn’t missing any limbs. No scars or thin...

45 likes 26 comments 26
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The Magic Eye of Simulation

Submitted to Contest #279

The contents of the vacuum chamber look the same as they did three months ago; as clear and empty as air. It is emptier than air, but to the naked eye, indistinguishable from it. My brother stares into it like it is the Mona Lisa. “Anything, Brett?” I say. “It’s beginning,” he replies, teeth gritted. The chamber is glass and spherical with a radius of around two feet. It is propped up by dark steel legs in a dimly lit room with walls layered four times over with black acrylic paint. I gaze into it, but as much I try to make substance of the ...

39 likes 31 comments 31
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Seeking Fair Lady

Submitted to Contest #279

No matter how much she fussed with her blonde locks, Lady Charity Farnsworth cast a blue-deviled countenance before her boudoir mirror so could not achieve a desirable outcome. She finally relinquished the brush, tossing it to the make-up strewn vanity as she thought to herself:Whatever am I to do? My father has forbidden me to ever entertain my beau, Sir Riley, in any genteel Ton company henceforth. He doesn't understand the depths of our love for one another. What is the point of attending yet another tea or ball in pretense of making a ma...

36 likes 24 comments 24
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Lost & Found

Submitted to Contest #279

Lost & Found   The train lurched forward, jolting me out of a melancholy daydream. The hiss of escaping steam did little to soothe my pounding head, as the clattering wheels screeched away from the station. My stomach churned in protest as I stared out the window, expecting the usual blur of industrial grime and graffitied walls. Instead, a sparkle caught my eye. Perhaps it was a trick of the sun, or the tequila talking, or maybe it was the spirit of Christmas coming to call. Whatever the reason, the shimmering light ...

30 likes 76 comments 76
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Fear Frontier

Submitted to Contest #279

Meant for the prompt, Write a story about someone confronting their worst nightmare.My name is Danielle Picotte. I have arachnophobia. I realize my fear is irrational. I can’t help it. I see a spider and I panic. I shake, I cry, I can’t breathe. I get anxious at the sight of a web. The thought that one could be lurking nearby possesses my mind. I can’t concentrate on anything else. It can interfere with daily and leisurely activities. I’m a teacher who couldn’t teach her class one day because a student said they saw a spider in my classroom....

29 likes 10 comments 10
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Technomancer 1: The Aftermath

Submitted to Contest #279

The dish's curved metal dome clanked as Masa tried to lift it. She failed and it resounded loudly as it hit the ground. Her hands went to her ears while she screamed from the pain while its metallic echo bounced back and forth across the dome. She took a deep breath and tried again, but failed.In despair, she beat against the dish. "Help! Someone help me! Father?!" she screamed and burst into tears, nursing her sore hand. It couldn’t be. Why could no one hear her?Masa tried another approach. The rock was soft in one spot so she used a loose ...

28 likes 11 comments 11
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Finding Lucas

Submitted to Contest #279

(**This story contains explicit language, violence and gore**) “He’s in there. I know he is,” said Mark to no one, kneeling behind a tree and staring through binoculars. He started to count, “three, four, five. I can take five.” This was only the people he could see, and he couldn’t be sure that there weren’t more. He’d have to wait another hour, then go in under the guise of darkness or risk being caught. An hour was a long time to wait when all you want is to be reunited, but if he wasn't smart about this, he’d die before he could ever he...

24 likes 5 comments 5
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Blank Friday

Submitted to Contest #279

When Daniel woke up on the morning after Thanksgiving Day, he did not know who he was. He knew his name, he knew his address and he knew his phone number, but that was about it. He could remember nothing about his past. Nothing at all.He wandered the house in search of clues. There were framed photos hanging on the walls, Daniel posing with various different people who were presumably friends and family, but the faces did nothing to aid his recall. He found a small stack of bills on a table, but that only told him who was supplying his insur...

18 likes 4 comments 4
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Ballad of the Gambler

Submitted to Contest #279

The following is one of several songs of unknown exact origin that circulated from person to person through the American Frontier about one of many long forgotten, some say even fabled, folks of the region's unruly past.The heat beats on without regard for prayers of escapeFrom those who gives up or has all taken by desperate hands.Yet one soul pays no mind, a numb, boiling shape. They just march on without end, drifting through desert sands. Where his destination lies is where that where is lying. For he goes long ways alone,...

14 likes 4 comments 4
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The Tiger's Den

M B

Submitted to Contest #279

Captain James Sphinx, leader of Misfit Squadron, stared out across the neon lined street, where trolley cars and autos plied the streets, the buildings all had a distinctive European design. If the young pilot didn’t know any better he’d have sworn he was in Europe. The distant hum of a jazz band seeped from the open windows of a nearby club, mingling with the scent of street food—garlicky dumplings, fried skewers, and an undercurrent of opium smoke that whispered of darker dealings. This was Shanghai, where East and West blended together.&n...

14 likes 7 comments 7
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True North

Submitted to Contest #279

My office exemplifies order. Labeled shelves march along three walls. Their contents arranged by period, region, significance. Every artifact preserves its story in its assigned place—all except one. My hand glides across the empty space on the desk where my father's compass should rest in its worn leather case. Its absence throbs like a missing tooth.  The compass survived three wars. My father's fieldwork. My childhood. Then thirty years of my own academic life and archeological digs. Dad taught me how to read that compass on a dig. H...

14 likes 6 comments 6
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The Echo Within

Submitted to Contest #279

Sylas hated the forest.It smelled like rot and damp regret, the way you’d imagine a closet full of forgotten coats might smell if it were left to die. The mud clung to his boots like bad memories, and the gnarled branches clawed at his jacket as though the woods themselves were warning him not to go on. A more sensible man might have turned back. Then again, a more sensible man wouldn’t have come out here in the first place.Sylas was not a sensible man.The forest stretched endlessly before him, tangled and suffocating, but that suited him ju...

14 likes 2 comments 2
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Willow’s Last Three Words

Submitted to Contest #279

Willow turned her body in agony as the sun streamed through her bedroom window into her wide-open eyes. Although the sun rose a few moments ago, Willow had been awake the entire night, tossing, turning, and jolting up straight when her breath staggered.Today, Willow Church turned thirteen years old. For the past few months, the taste of being a teenager was all she could salivate about. Thirteen was entering a new era of blue-streaked hair and staying out later than she could at twelve.Willow was especially excited to go to school on he...

14 likes 7 comments 7
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Mistside

Submitted to Contest #279

She stood in front of her mirror. Her small build made her seem much younger than what she was. Her eyes followed the curves of her body down to her knees. The invisible hands that she imagined caressing each dip, showed her the intensity of her imagination.After dressing, Kara went to her easel. She attached her apron to her waist and she gathered her brushes and paints accordingly. She slowly looked at her paintings that covered the walls around her. She expressed different moods just with her face."I’m not quite sure what I’d like to pain...

14 likes 2 comments 2
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