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#363 Weather the Storm

With temperatures rising here in the UK, I’ve been dreaming of cooler days. I’d gladly welcome a sudden gust of wind, an unexpected rain shower, or a cloudy sky with open arms! This week, I invite you to beat the heat with stories that center around surprises, struggles, and surviving (literal or figurative!) storms.

🥇 Winner

Caribou River

Winner of Weekly Contest #363 🏆

I was a high school school girl in 2015 so you know I’ve taken a lot of Buzzfeed quizzes. There was the one about my inner spud (tater tot), the one about which possible Illuminati member I am (Bill Gates), the one about which Disney Prince is my soulmate (Prince Naveen), and the one about water. That’s the one I was trying to remember. It might sound dumb, sitting around at twenty-eight years old thinking about Buzzfeed quizzes, but you’d be surprised at the sheer range of what you think about when your cell phone has no internet connection...

71 likes 23 comments 23
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⭐️ Shortlisted

Last Dog Watch

Shortlisted for Contest #363 ⭐️

Even though he had been back to the house every week for the past two months, it still looked shrunken and dented; he kept expecting a wave of warmth to push its way up through him, pressurised and volcanic, but his memories of growing up behind the grey roughcast walls and picking blackberries and wild mint from the garden had been bleached bare by time. Now, it was just another detached house in a commuter suburb, in which his father’s life was burning to the quick. He let himself in quietly and saw Hazel getting ready to leave, packing an...

16 likes 3 comments 3
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Maiden, Mother, Seal

Shortlisted for Contest #363 ⭐️

Morna stares ahead, eyes glassy as the sea she’s looking beyond. The salted air is sharp as it whips at her skirt and hair and stings her eyes, although she knows that’s not why they water so. And it isn’t because she plans to jump either. That was why she had forced herself to hike up to the cliff top, not follow the call to the seashore. She couldn’t very well heed the call from that height, even if she had her sealskin. But maybe that’s what Colin will tell them when she is gone. She has to go. That she’d jumped, or one way or another, sh...

15 likes 7 comments 7
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This week's prompts

Set your story before, during, or after a storm.

– 131 stories

Your character sees or experiences something unexpected. What happens next?

– 44 stories

Begin or end your story with someone looking out at a body of water (e.g., river, ocean, sea).

– 63 stories

Center your story around a character who is struggling with something no one else in their life knows about.

– 48 stories

Begin or end your story with someone standing in the rain or snow.

– 46 stories

Stories

Moscow is Far...

Weekly Contest #363

No rain or lightning had fallen that day, yet a storm of a different nature had already passed through the village.Father Nicolai lit a beeswax candle, and the small flame pushed back the darkness. Broken faces of saints emerged from the dancing light. Glass crunched beneath his feet, each step echoing beneath the arched mosaic dome, before returning to him alone. His tears tasted bitter and ran hot like wax to his beard.He lifted the golden censer, filled with burning charcoal and frankincense, and swung it gently, as priests do. Twelve sma...

73 likes 84 comments 84
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Caribou River

Winner of Weekly Contest #363 🏆

I was a high school school girl in 2015 so you know I’ve taken a lot of Buzzfeed quizzes. There was the one about my inner spud (tater tot), the one about which possible Illuminati member I am (Bill Gates), the one about which Disney Prince is my soulmate (Prince Naveen), and the one about water. That’s the one I was trying to remember. It might sound dumb, sitting around at twenty-eight years old thinking about Buzzfeed quizzes, but you’d be surprised at the sheer range of what you think about when your cell phone has no internet connection...

71 likes 23 comments 23
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Vampire's Kiss

Weekly Contest #363

Julia wasn’t like the other girls. She was weird, but not in a bad way. She didn’t pick her nose and wipe boogers under the desk, like Amber. She didn’t smell like she’d rolled around in a bed of garlic, trying to fend off a flock of imaginary vampires, like Gemma. And she didn’t shove her face right up against mine every time she talked to me, like Samantha did.No, she wasn’t weird because of the things she did. It was the things she didn’t do. She didn’t talk about herself as if she were the center of the universe or try to upstage everyon...

52 likes 53 comments 53
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Weather The Storm

Weekly Contest #363

This story has been revised following the thoughtful feedback of fellow writers... The taste of old copper bit into my tongue. Around me, the wood of The Albatross did not just creak; it shrieked. Every oak rib of the merchant vessel groaned under the weight of the Atlantic, which had turned into a churning, frothing black. "Hold her steady, you miserable dogs!" I roared, my voice cutting through the howl of the gale. Somewhere forward I heard one of the men let out a cry of pure fear as a wave crashed over the gunwale — a sound that stole m...

48 likes 86 comments 86
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Groom of the Yuki-Onna

Weekly Contest #363

"Wake up, Kenji. If you sleep, she’ll die."The words reached me through the wolf-like howls of the wind and the hammering of hailstones on my sanctuary, startling me alert in the numbing cold.I lurched back against the blocks of the igloo, cracked freezing eyelids apart.“Wh-what..?”I spoke, and the winds whistling into the igloo through its narrow opening took the word to feed the blizzard outside.My chin had dropped onto my ice-dusted parka for just a moment, but in that moment it felt like an eternity had passed. In that moment, Aiko Takah...

37 likes 33 comments 33
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The Wail

Weekly Contest #363

THE WAIL At half past midnight, a sound rolled across their cottage rooftops like a foghorn trapped inside a barrel. It wasn't merely loud; it seemed to vibrate through timber beams and stone chimneys, stirring dozing dogs into uneasy barking. Villagers rose, sleepy-eyed yet curious. They slipped on boots, wrapped shawls around their shoulders, and stepped out into the chilly night. Lanterns flickered like fireflies as they were drawn toward the commotion below on their beachfront. This was the sort of village that stood still over time. Wea...

31 likes 43 comments 43
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A Highway with No Traffic

Weekly Contest #363

“If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown!”-Ralph Waldo Emerson A Highway with No Traffic Not a single star pierced the night. Quinn had been walking since before sunrise, his pack digging harder into his shoulders with every mile. The high-voltage lines hummed overhead, occasionally hissing at him.Desert dust coated his throat, turning every breath shallow and raw. Smoke burned his eyes and nose and tur...

21 likes 11 comments 11
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Seven Minutes

Weekly Contest #363

Elkins, Arkansas, Late Spring 3:46 p.m. The tornado sirens begin. I don’t really care. I’m playing catch with my kid brother, Andy. Our dog, Rocky, runs around our feet, barking and trying to grab the ball whenever Andy drops it. I absently notice the lazy flickers of lightning bugs near the edge of the woods. Part of me finds that strange, but I don’t know why. The sirens come from the direction of town, overlapping like echoes in a cave. They start low, increasing in pitch and sustaining for a few seconds until the cycle repeats. I catch ...

21 likes 11 comments 11
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Harwin

Weekly Contest #363

My mother builds stone piles when life feels chaotic. I find them on the desk in the window. At the center of the kitchen table. Beside my bed, under the lamp on the nightstand. I think it’s her way of helping me see myself in the world, a small visual cue for courage when the well is depleted. Not a gusher that well, even on the best days. For me, anyway. I envy people with tappable reserves. Strips of sunlight slip through the window shades and knife the bed diagonally. I yank the chord and yellow warmth comes flooding in. J...

20 likes 7 comments 7
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The Oath Maker

Weekly Contest #363

Baskin the Oath Maker stood upon the smooth and slippery porcelain floor. At noon, as always, the great metal tunnel delivered a great gust of water, slowly filling the tub.“Baskin! You belligerent fool!”Baskin turned to face Skitter the Great. The roach crawled his way slowly, years of battles had taken their toll on the great leader of Rosarion Nest.“Move any slower, Skitter, and I will be forced to jump in the tub. A cockroach drowning will be faster than your useless pace.”Skitter stopped right in his tracks. Holding his pin-needle cane ...

18 likes 16 comments 16
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The Uprooted

Weekly Contest #363

The wind quit around four in the morning. I sat at the kitchen table in the dark and counted the silence where it used to be. One. Two. My thumb pressed my palm on each number, an old habit surfacing the way a bruise does, days after the fall. I hadn't done that in months. I did it again now, without deciding to.By the time the sky went the color of dishwater, I went out in my father's canvas coat, the one still on its hook by the door because I'd never found the nerve to bag it for the church drive. The yard looked wrong the way a well-used...

18 likes 15 comments 15
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The Lonely Elf

Weekly Contest #363

Kalinin, River Hamlet12th of Winter Season, 1266The tall figure stumbles drunkenly through the street, the long trail of his black cloak dragging over the muddy ice and slush strewn streets. He carries an empty glass bottle in one tight fist and reeks of alcohol and pond water. Villagers part around him as if he were a shark in the water and they the timid sardines. He's looking for a place to rest or perhaps another drink. Before he sighs and collapses into a stinking pile of hay, someone caught a glimpse of his face, if only for a moment, ...

17 likes 7 comments 7
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The Call of the Sea

Weekly Contest #363

The Call of the Sea I stood at the rail, amazed to be alone on the promenade deck. Only yesterday, we had lined this rail, two deep, as friends and family stood on the docks and waved their farewells. Today, most passengers were seasick below deck. Beyond our storm-tossed ship, the sea was a sharply peaked range of rolling gray hills and valleys – immense wave crests capped with foam that the wind sliced free, then shaped into clouds of mist that stung my skin with cold. While my face grew numb, the hooded mackintosh and waterproof trousers ...

17 likes 20 comments 20
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Two Men and a Bear

Weekly Contest #363

Email 1: July 21st Subject: Request for ghostwriter: Two Men and a Bear Dear Katherine, Thanks for your message. This sounds like an interesting ask. I usually ghostwrite memoirs, but I’ve dabbled in fiction before. You mentioned the story would focus on two inexperienced men who go camping in the forest and come across a bear. You also mentioned some material you're willing to share from camping with your cousin. Please send it as an attachment, and I'll review. I'll be honest, the premise sounds a bit "done," but I'll keep an open mind. I...

17 likes 11 comments 11
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The Continuity States of America

Weekly Contest #363

The Continuity States of America They assessed me for the first time when I was three months old. I didn’t remember it, of course, but the file did. The file remembered everything. It said I was calm. It said my pulse stayed even as the nurse lifted my arm, as the scanner passed over my scalp like a blessing, warm and humming. The file noted that I did not cry, that my eyes tracked the light, that my breathing never faltered. It recorded this as a promise. By fifteen, my score was finalized, printed in clean letters that did not tremble: Mot...

17 likes 5 comments 5
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