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#182 Feeling Watched

Being self-conscious is one thing; being paranoid is quite another. Feeling eyes on you changes your behavior, simultaneously casting you in a reality TV show and a dystopian horror film. Do you thrive in attention, feel jumpy, or overthink your every move?


Let’s don our trench coats, take a furtive glance around a street corner, and search the unmoving darkness for answers. Don’t forget your torch.

🥇 Winner

Careful—You’ll Slip, Fall, and Die on Those Slippery Slopes

Winner of Weekly Contest #182 🏆

cw: references to sexual assault, kidnapping, and murderThe first time I crossed a street by myself—as in, without one or both of my parents present—I was seventeen. My parents warned me that the outside world was dangerous, and that, if something were to happen to me, I wouldn't know what to do. According to my parents, kidnappers, murderers, and kidnapper-murderers lurked on every corner of our small, suburban town where, statistically, my chances of becoming the victim of a violent crime were less than my chances of being allowed to ...

224 likes 198 comments 198
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⭐️ Shortlisted

Critical Message

Shortlisted for Contest #182 ⭐️

Breath in. Breath out.Please pay attention. What I am about to tell you is of paramount importance.I don’t have much time before she figures it out. I know what I am about to say may be confusing, but if you listen carefully, you will make the right decision.A patter of footsteps on tile down a hallway. The world won’t be what you think it will be in the future.You see, I’m speaking to you from a time beyond your own. It hasn’t happened to you, yet.Voices, muffled through walls.You may be thinking that I am writing this messag...

81 likes 42 comments 42
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Hey Streamer

Shortlisted for Contest #182 ⭐️

With any luck I’ll be able to eat today. The food court of the Silver Gardens Mall is notorious for the greasy factory produced shit that corporations insist is technically edible, but a bottom feeder like me doesn’t have much choice.I see the place is packed with squirming bodies. Seniors, students, families. Lots of have-people. A band of high school boys throwing fries at each other. They don’t even know they’re haves. A couple more years and they’ll learn.All of this, under the watchful eyes of the PanoptiSafe surveillance system. Beady ...

73 likes 109 comments 109
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The Guest House

Shortlisted for Contest #182 ⭐️

Carson Liao was the richest man in the world, so of course he was always being watched. Reporters were on him like flies on shit the second he stepped out in public. He had bodyguards, bulletproof windows on his limousines, and a security system so high-tech that anyone who breathed in the direction of his front gate got flagged. But this. This was different. This was a nagging feeling, a prickle at the back of his neck. It made him constantly want to glance over his shoulder. He felt it when he was in the back garden giving Gary his we...

36 likes 19 comments 19
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Eyes in the Clouds

Shortlisted for Contest #182 ⭐️

[Content warning: fantasy violence, horror, mentions of suicide] The local folk of the Phantom Stretch had always whispered of eyes in the clouds, but some kinds of terror must be suffered before they can be understood. Foolhardy wanderers paid little mind to what they called the idle chattering of superstitious forest dwellers. The gunslinger had burned the discovered corpses of a few such ignorant outsiders in her time. She’d burned friends, as well, and lost more of those than she’d burned. Some had left border towns destined for the wa...

33 likes 10 comments 10
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Mike didn't come home last night

Shortlisted for Contest #182 ⭐️

“Mike didn’t come home last night.”I gaze at Mia, her lip trembling as the words escape in a jerky sob, and try to find the right platitudes to make her feel better. He loves you. He wouldn’t cheat on you. He probably just needs a bit of alone time. I know I should feel sympathy but I can’t help thinking, I told you so.The first time I met him, I knew Mike Dalton was bad news. Tall and dark with just the right amount of designer stubble and eyes that invited you to bed the moment you looked at him, he smouldered raw sexuality. He wouldn’t be...

32 likes 19 comments 19
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Return to Plum Creek

Shortlisted for Contest #182 ⭐️

Mrs. Frasier insisted on complete silence when it was reading time. She clapped her hands sharply two times and gave the third graders a stern look. Recess was over, coats and scarves hung on hooks. The chatter and jostling was dwindling but not yet done. Two more claps. Chairs scraped across the linoleum floor as the children settled, and all eyes turned to Danny Green who was frozen in a robot pose near Mrs. Frasier’s desk, his dark eyes wide with mock fear, his mouth in an O.          &nbs...

25 likes 12 comments 12
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Train Ride

Shortlisted for Contest #182 ⭐️

I know she can feel me looking at her. I try to suppress the shock that is contorting my face. She’s eight or ten people behind me in the line. I avert my eyes, barely, attempting to camouflage my snooping. Her greasy hair and splotchy pink skin burn in my peripheral. The oblivious baby on her hip. The royal blue spaghetti strap dress. Half-dress. I shiver. She’s looking at me, it’s obvious. Disgust plastered on her face. Everyone is looking at me. Well, this is what he wanted. What he always wants. I’m used to the attention. A cool gust o...

24 likes 18 comments 18
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The Confessor

Shortlisted for Contest #182 ⭐️

MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPT DATABASE Manuscripts > Digitised Manuscripts > French > XIV Century > 322-511 —----------------------------------------- ~ Access granted through your institution ~ —---------------------------------------- La Roche-Aiguille Manuscript BNF Ms-412 to 416 Date: 7-10[?] December 1316 Author:  Robert of Lyon Fol. N/A Parchment, 5x pieces 250 x 340 mm. Description: Five pages, bound roughly together in the top left.  Presented in order. ___________________________________________ [1] I fear th...

22 likes 8 comments 8
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This week's prompts

Start your story with a home alarm system going off.

– 49 stories

Set your story in a society where everyone is constantly aware of unwanted surveillance.

– 27 stories

Write a story where someone’s paranoia is justified.

– 75 stories

Write about a character who wishes they could just disappear — and then they do.

– 49 stories

Start your story with someone entering a taxi and saying ‘follow that car.’

– 33 stories

Stories

Careful—You’ll Slip, Fall, and Die on Those Slippery Slopes

Winner of Weekly Contest #182 🏆

cw: references to sexual assault, kidnapping, and murderThe first time I crossed a street by myself—as in, without one or both of my parents present—I was seventeen. My parents warned me that the outside world was dangerous, and that, if something were to happen to me, I wouldn't know what to do. According to my parents, kidnappers, murderers, and kidnapper-murderers lurked on every corner of our small, suburban town where, statistically, my chances of becoming the victim of a violent crime were less than my chances of being allowed to ...

224 likes 198 comments 198
Read story

Critical Message

Shortlisted for Contest #182 ⭐️

Breath in. Breath out.Please pay attention. What I am about to tell you is of paramount importance.I don’t have much time before she figures it out. I know what I am about to say may be confusing, but if you listen carefully, you will make the right decision.A patter of footsteps on tile down a hallway. The world won’t be what you think it will be in the future.You see, I’m speaking to you from a time beyond your own. It hasn’t happened to you, yet.Voices, muffled through walls.You may be thinking that I am writing this messag...

81 likes 42 comments 42
Read story

Hey Streamer

Shortlisted for Contest #182 ⭐️

With any luck I’ll be able to eat today. The food court of the Silver Gardens Mall is notorious for the greasy factory produced shit that corporations insist is technically edible, but a bottom feeder like me doesn’t have much choice.I see the place is packed with squirming bodies. Seniors, students, families. Lots of have-people. A band of high school boys throwing fries at each other. They don’t even know they’re haves. A couple more years and they’ll learn.All of this, under the watchful eyes of the PanoptiSafe surveillance system. Beady ...

73 likes 109 comments 109
Read story

Rural Route 12: Bev's Shoes Attend a Party

Weekly Contest #182

Allergen Warning: Profanity A pink palace in a sea of perfectly-manicured green lawn, the large "shoe-shed" at the back of Beverly Meeks’ property was a beauty to behold and a testament to depraved matrimony. Originally a mid-sized industrial chicken coop, the customized shed now held the footwear trophies of her successful behavior modification experiments on her husband, Dan, throughout the 17 years of their marriage (he remained oblivious). Yards of unending styles and colors “popped” – metaphorically – as the door opened, along with aut...

62 likes 115 comments 115
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Butterfly

Weekly Contest #182

Prologue  The home alarm went off. I heard a loud crash. Someone was trying to kill me! I screamed. There was blood everywhere! My head was throbbing. They had me on the floor. I couldn't see anything except a blur of a shadow. I think it was a man standing over me with his knife. Another man had his arm wrapped around me and was holding me. My head pounded, and it felt hot, as if it were on fire. A voice yelled, Get up. You're going to be alright. We've got you. Get up, get up. I didn't move and I thought I'd die. I heard the voice t...

55 likes 17 comments 17
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My Apology to You for Camp Crescendo

Weekly Contest #182

Content warning: Themes/mentions of physical abuse and death***I apologize in advance. For the lateness of this, and for any details I get wrong. Twenty years has been nothing but one long tidal wave, crashing onto the beach of my memory. I can never quite recall what all I told you out there, how much of myself I let you see. I only know for certain how it all ended.***Camp Crescendo looked like any other summer camp you'd find in Iowa, and maybe that was the problem. Not as though I'd been to any other summer camp. But I imagined, as Mr. A...

48 likes 58 comments 58
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Save the Last Dance for Me

Weekly Contest #182

You look beautiful in that dress, floating under the disco lights like silver smoke. You dance in his arms, but I imagine you spooling apart, drifting out of his hold, back to me. No one else can see the ten slight pressure marks where his fingers meet the softness of your flesh, but I feel them like his hands are on me, not you. And you are smiling against his cheek, wearing a lipstick I have never seen you in, never kissed you in, before. Your first dance of the night is over and others stream onto the dancefloor as the music cranks u...

37 likes 37 comments 37
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The Guest House

Shortlisted for Contest #182 ⭐️

Carson Liao was the richest man in the world, so of course he was always being watched. Reporters were on him like flies on shit the second he stepped out in public. He had bodyguards, bulletproof windows on his limousines, and a security system so high-tech that anyone who breathed in the direction of his front gate got flagged. But this. This was different. This was a nagging feeling, a prickle at the back of his neck. It made him constantly want to glance over his shoulder. He felt it when he was in the back garden giving Gary his we...

36 likes 19 comments 19
Read story

Sunset in Burma

Weekly Contest #182

Note: I have retained the historically correct place names, though they have since changed.I promised myself I would tell this story when I came to America in 1974. And I tried. But then I found out that most people didn’t know Burma was a country in the first place. I couldn’t tell a story about what was happening in a country that didn’t even exist in their mental geography. That’s something people can’t hear.To be fair, I didn’t hear what I was being told either, even though I was there. Not until a letter travelled halfway round the...

36 likes 40 comments 40
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The Lost Continent

Weekly Contest #182

Danny Beresford woke up in a good mood, as he did every morning after Penny’s abrupt departure. It was a relief to start the day without her cold shoulder and frosty words. Even before their divorce was completed, she’d earmarked her possessions; family heirlooms, souvenirs from foreign holidays, and all those silly knick-knacks with limited sentimental value. Danny hadn’t contested her choices; he’d always thought the place was far too cluttered. ‘I suppose it’s less to dust,’ his mother had said. ‘But it’s a damn nerve, dear.’ ‘N...

34 likes 33 comments 33
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New Eden

Weekly Contest #182

“You are entering New Eden’s demerit-free zone,” the voice on the tannoy system announced. “For your own safety, all demerit-positive citizens must turn back now… Remember, rations are a privilege. Demerits are a scourge.” I hear these repetitive warnings day after day after so many others, that I’ve lost count. They are a constant reminder of the oppressive regime’s total control of the populace. The long line of green-overalled men and women, shuffling slowly past the automated scanner, share a mutual fear of the machine that probes their ...

34 likes 29 comments 29
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Eyes in the Clouds

Shortlisted for Contest #182 ⭐️

[Content warning: fantasy violence, horror, mentions of suicide] The local folk of the Phantom Stretch had always whispered of eyes in the clouds, but some kinds of terror must be suffered before they can be understood. Foolhardy wanderers paid little mind to what they called the idle chattering of superstitious forest dwellers. The gunslinger had burned the discovered corpses of a few such ignorant outsiders in her time. She’d burned friends, as well, and lost more of those than she’d burned. Some had left border towns destined for the wa...

33 likes 10 comments 10
Read story

Ghost

Weekly Contest #182

              “Follow that taxi.” You’ve just seen a ghost.              “Wha-Which one?” The driver in the front seat is shaken from his slumber. He’s an obese, mountain of a man, so big that sitting is his natural state. The cab smells like cheeseburgers and cigarettes.              “That one, pulling out, two down. Hurry.” &nbs...

32 likes 4 comments 4
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Mike didn't come home last night

Shortlisted for Contest #182 ⭐️

“Mike didn’t come home last night.”I gaze at Mia, her lip trembling as the words escape in a jerky sob, and try to find the right platitudes to make her feel better. He loves you. He wouldn’t cheat on you. He probably just needs a bit of alone time. I know I should feel sympathy but I can’t help thinking, I told you so.The first time I met him, I knew Mike Dalton was bad news. Tall and dark with just the right amount of designer stubble and eyes that invited you to bed the moment you looked at him, he smouldered raw sexuality. He wouldn’t be...

32 likes 19 comments 19
Read story

Cicero and Catiline

Weekly Contest #182

My face burned with humiliation as the other Senators laughed and jeered at me. The entire Senate hall, or curia, as we called it, had turned against me. And the instigator of my shame? Catiline. Who else would it be? That he, an ignorant disgrace to Rome, wished to insult my reputation was no surprise. But that my fellow senators, men of honour and distinction, valued his birth and breeding over my cold logic and flawless rhetoric was a savage blow indeed.I had just completed a lengthy and thoroughly researched speech detailing why Catiline...

30 likes 23 comments 23
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