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“Your protagonist discovers they’ve been wrong about the most important thing in their life.”

Posted in Character on Mar 20, 2026

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✍️ 102 stories

The Love of Time

Weekly Contest #347

As a woman of twenty-three, I find life is too full and the days are too short for family condolences or family memories. This is a life of lust. A life of self-discipline. You can’t just simply ignore the fact that life is full of hatred and sorrow and people are ‘busy busy busy’ as my aunt Stacy says. There is simply too much to do around my little apartment that there is no room for those small things any more. My mother called me yesterday saying how much she missed me and asking me if this weekend I would come over for her birthday, ju...

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Illumination and Regret

Weekly Contest #347

We have met the ferryman before, so I wasn´t surprised to find him like this again, playing Death´s violin in the centre of his thirteen marble pillars of decay. Today we have not come before him to request his service, but in search for answers. We approached him slowly and when he spoke, the only thing showing his awareness of our presence was the slightly decreasing volume of his play. “Lucifer and Lilith. I must admit, I did not expect you to return this quickly. “His voice was toneless, yet had an unmistakable tone, like vocal cords tur...

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Order Is Mercy.

Weekly Contest #347

They taught us that peace was something to be made, not something to wait for. Peace never arrived on its own. It had to be forced, hammered in until the screaming stopped. That was the first lesson, and I don’t really remember learning it, only knowing it, like how you know the back of your hand. The banners have been there since I began school. Black cloth, heavy and hanging in every doorway. A White flame split down the middle. Beneath it, the words we learned to read before anything else. Order Is Mercy. I learned the flame was not for d...

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Idols in Ashes

Weekly Contest #347

I remember the first time that my heart was broken. It was the morning of the Frostfyre Festival, once my favourite time of the cycle. I was about 12 cycles of age and had woken up somewhat earlier than usual, excited about the preparations around me, the servants quietly buzzing around the moderately-sized mansion my now somewhat status-challenged family had owned for generations. I rushed out of my room still dressed in my sleeping attire, barely taking the time to grab a pair of slippers to put on while dashing across the hallway to my f...

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Tipping Stasis

Weekly Contest #347

The gargantuan planet named GINA-0076, skin of mottled aqua, deep blue, pinks and oranges, filled the abyss of young Isadora’s ponderous pupil. She stared at it through the Flight Deck display, which showed all of space beyond. She was a new scientist now, so she inspected it critically… as far as she knew what that meant. She wondered at all that life and flora down there, the likes of which she’d probably never seen before, including the one capsule of life she would help Dad bring back home, once he finally decided to return from the surf...

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Distorted

Weekly Contest #347

Eva pulled her hoodie tighter around herself as she stepped onto the treadmill, even though she was already warm. There's a dull ache sitting behind her eyes that pulses every time she looks down. She typed the same numbers from the past three days at the same speed and with the same incline. No adjustments to compensate for her sickness, or that she hasn't taken a day off from the gym for the past nine days in a row. Adjustments meant weakness. The treadmill started, slow at first, then faster, until it settled into the rhythm she knew by h...

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The Truth of Saint Amathia

Weekly Contest #347

“Top of your class in the seminary I see.” Father Dolion of the Church of Saint Amathia spoke, casting his gaze down upon Brother Samuel. His spectacles sit high atop a strong roman nose making his eyes appear larger than they really were. He wore fine white robes, with a gold embroidered collar and sleeve cuffs. Brother Samuel could make out finely crafted sandals adorning his feet tucked beneath his robe. “Your superiors speak highly of your pastoral abilities and you have become a pillar of the tiny community of which you come from.” Fa...

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Still Here

Weekly Contest #347

Content warning: death, hospital/end-of-life Still HereThe hospital smelled like linen and something older beneath it, something no amount of laundering could touch.Room 412 was dim when she arrived — one light above the bed turned low, the rest of the world reduced to shadow and the orange glow of the parking lot through the window. Her father lay against the pillows with his eyes closed, not like he was sleeping but like he was working at something from the inside. The oxygen machine breathed beside him, keeping his breath even, vast and r...

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Wretched

Weekly Contest #347

Wretched. The mirror slipped from my grasp, shattering into a hundred fragments on the floor. I didn’t notice the colors the glass casted on the tower walls, or the tiny pin-pricks of pain on my feet. Wretched. ”N-No..” the word slipped out. I stumbled back, away from the shards of glass, away from the truth. But how? It was impossible- “Lyre!” Sunday’s voice came from my left, and a second later he’s placing a steadying hand on my arm. It was only when he did so that I realized how much I’d been shaking. ”No, s-stay away from me!” I jerked ...

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The Stand

Weekly Contest #347

The sign was pretty freaking clear.Henry, Jake, and I had found an abandoned hunter’s perch in the depths of woods behind our neighborhood. We hung the sign outside the wooden tower, thus claiming it as our own.It would be our hideout, our sanctuary, our Fortress of Solitude as we navigated middle school with its slow growth of personal freedoms and bodily changes that our parents never addressed.We had considered calling it "The Castle for Men,” or “The Mastle” for short, but it didn’t stick. “The Man Hut” and “The Man Stand” sounded weird,...

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Always by your side

Weekly Contest #347

You know I’m always by your side Iris. The text message said. My lips formed a small smile. She always did that. Giving huge promises that even the dumbest ones knew she wouldn’t be able to keep. I was used to it by now though. Even liked the childishness of it a little bit. I put my phone in my pocket and returned my gaze back to my awfully tidy desk. My bag innocently stood on top of it, moving ever so slightly with my every heartbeat that it was nearly unnoticeable. I reached for it but my hand came to a halt. I gulped, hardly swallowing ...

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The Sorceress’s Apprentice

Weekly Contest #347

The Great Tree loomed before me, endless steps hewn from ancient roots that gnarled and twisted. The first step was not nearly as tall as I remembered. Father had been taking me here before I could even walk. He would let me climb as he told me stories of the Sorceress Luna and her court within the Tree, its curving bark becoming as familiar and comforting to me as a mother’s embrace. But today I was not here to sit and listen to stories. After years of studying and training, I was finally going to meet the Sorceress. And I was to become her...

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The Fluorescent Afternoon

Weekly Contest #347

Eve sat under the warm glow of hundreds of fluorescent lights. The office was busy, with the constant sound of clicking keyboards, phone calls, and printers. Eve sat at her desk which she normally kept tidy but today was a cluster of crumpled sticky notes. She glanced at her phone. No messages. She sat, trying to compose an email to a colleague but was having trouble focusing. She had messaged her boyfriend Tyler twice, but had received no reply. Tyler had spent the better part of the last few months living at her apartment, watching movies...

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Perpetual Orbit

Weekly Contest #347

As I release the final marble from between my fingers, it glides down the stainless steel chute with the grace of a gold medalist flying down a luge. I hear it click into place, and the LED screen above the contraption lights up with a colorful burst. A victorious chime plays aloud.“Bang!” I exclaim, channeling my inner basketball fan.“Nice work, Pav.” Serenity emerges from behind me, giving me a gentle pat on the shoulder. “That brings you to the weekend, if my math is correct?”I turn to look at her, and her eyes glimmer in the fluorescent ...

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Among the wild reindeer moss

Weekly Contest #347

Trigger warnings:mental healthdeath, graphic words describing someone dying Chapter 1 As I’m sitting on my squeaky bed, the wind knocks om my wooden door; inviting me to go outside. The wind decides to be wild in this late hour; So I will join in. I hop out bed and race with it towards the sound of the crashing waves on the beach near my wooden house. My toes are planted in the sand and a salty scent lingers around me. I turn my head upwards: Billions of stars are staring me into the face. This night reminds me of my eight birthday. My ...

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