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#373 No One Will Believe You

As I watch more horror films in the run-up to Halloween, I've noticed a common element across many of them: doubt. Characters who're told they're imagining things, characters who can see what others can't — perhaps real horror lies not in the unknown, but in the disbelief of others.

For this week's contest, let's write stories about characters who are ignored, misheard, or barely heard at all. Can you write a story that’ll make your reader doubt?

🥇 Winner

Jared is Dead

Winner of Weekly Contest #373 🏆

Mary sat still as a statue. Her typically frenzied headspace was quiet, placid, felt stuffed with polyester batting and fiberglass insulation. One thought too many, and it might cause a spark and the whole thing would go up instantly in flames. There was only space enough for one idea, one truth, one memory: Jared is dead. The room around her smelled like Doritos and hand sanitizer. Mary was dimly aware that names were being announced over a speaker, but never focused her attention enough to distinguish who was being called or where to. A fl...

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⭐️ Shortlisted

This week's prompts

Write a story where the reader can’t be sure what’s real, or who’s right.

– 65 stories

Start or end your story with a warning that nobody takes seriously.

– 35 stories

Write a story that includes a testimony, a statement, and/or a transcript.

– 18 stories

Include the line "You’re imagining things" or "You’re lying" in your story.

– 42 stories

Write about a character who notices something others cannot — or refuse to — see.

– 56 stories

Stories

THE DEVIL'S POOL

Weekly Contest #373

The air conditioner unit rattled the window that held it in place and whined with the raspy hiss of someone on their deathbed, but still it didn’t drown out the talk show on in the other room. My gran needed the tv blaring. It’s a wonder the neighbors never complained. I shoveled another spoon full of cereal into my mouth and scrolled on my phone. “Elijah, be a dear and bring me that bag of Cheetos on the shelf!” “Gran, you know the doctor said you need to watch your salt intake,” I reminded her. There were times I didn’t know who was baby...

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The Secret Life of Wendy Milque

Weekly Contest #373

Can a lovelorn librarian find true romance within the stacks? Note: This story parodies James Thurber’s short story ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.’ As Wendy Milque is a librarian, the original ‘pocketa-pocketa-pocketa’ has morphed into ‘book-a-ta, book-a-ta … book-a-ta.’ “Excuse me – Excuse me,” Wendy heard a young voice say. Slumped in her chair, Wendy peered over the top of the Reference Desk. All she could see was a mop of blond hair. Sitting up, she realized it was a boy – maybe seven or eight years old. Leaning forward to make eye co...

12 likes 1 comment 1
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Echoes of the Past

Weekly Contest #373

Disclaimer: Adult Themes/Content Aarti finally arrived at her old home! The drive was long from her dormitory, but that didn’t bother Aarti. She knew today was important, so it was worth the wait. The evening air, thick, scent of marigolds and sandalwood lingered. Time had passed, the house had not. Just as she remembered: dusk-orange walls carved in Sanskrit, its courtyard bathed in flickering oil lamp light, even the rhythmic creaking of the old ceiling fan. Some things never change, she thought. Aarti took off her shoes as she stepped in,...

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Burning Butterflies

Weekly Contest #373

The sun yawned, rubbing away the night’s concerns with a gentle dawn. The forest glittered in the emerging light – rainwater clung to the greenery. Shelly Langstrom unzipped her tent, scratching at the silence of the morning. If she hadn’t woken up already full of so much noise, maybe she would have realized a morning in the mountains is never this quiet. Embers from last night’s fire released threads of smoke. Shelly slumped into a cheap camping chair; she had forgotten her sturdy, expensive one at home. A checklist formed in her head. Get ...

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Mine, Mine, Sweet Little Eye

Weekly Contest #373

The clock said 3:19. Abigail had been watching the minutes change since three. Beside the clock sat the baby monitor, doing its trick again: static, soft and steady, like someone chewing cellophane in another room. Heather had gone down at eleven. Three-month-olds don't sleep all night. The books were smug about it. Somewhere in the static, a voice had started singing. "Mine, mine, sweet little eye..." A woman's voice. A rasp, the kind that comes from a lifetime of ash settling in the lungs. Rock‑a‑bye Baby, except the tune had gone off‑true...

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Project Lethe

Weekly Contest #373

At 2:43 in the morning, Jorgen Koumanelos discovered he had been asleep for nine minutes. He knew because the ceiling had changed. The bedroom windows were programmed to tint with the movement of the moon, and the pale rectangle above his bed had shifted six centimeters toward the west wall. Nine minutes. Jorgen closed his eyes. Behind them, the desalination equations returned. Not deliberately. Nothing in his head happened deliberately anymore. Pressure differentials. Membrane degradation. The acquisition proposal waiting in Zurich. A flaw ...

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Strawberry Sam

Weekly Contest #373

Sensitive content: mature themes, mental health, and strong language. “I know what I saw, Hank,” I whisper as we stand by the kitchen sink. It’s been three days, no, four, since we got back from the hospital. I’m having trouble keeping track. It’s all been so hectic. It’s three in the morning and I’ve just finished feeding the baby. He drank greedily but squirmed the whole time, making it uncomfortable for both of us. My nipples are sore, my neck is tight, and I need to lie down—but first Hank is going to listen to me. “Cassy, please, let’s...

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Brother's Keeper

Weekly Contest #373

“Please sit Mr. Denton,” the man behind the desk said, gesturing at the chair. “I am Inspector Russo. I have read my officer’s report and your statement of the incident at Santa Pudenziana. It is a disturbing case of desecration of one of Rome’s most holy sites.” “It wasn’t like that,” Denton said. “I was returning a lost artifact.” “Are you a finder of lost artifacts, Mr. Denton, an Indiana Jones?” Russo said, with mocking emphasis. He flipped through some papers on his desk and continued. “It looks like you work in the accounting departmen...

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Blind Spot

Weekly Contest #373

Retirement gave me a surplus of time and an intimate knowledge of my neighborhood's rhythm. I knew the Hendersons walked their dog at six, the mail carrier parked on the corner, and, without a shadow of a doubt, the figure slipping up Bob and Diane Berryman's driveway did not belong there. The Berrymans were twenty years my senior, a quiet couple who rarely left their living room. They certainly didn't get visitors wearing heavy black hoodies on a Tuesday afternoon. When the figure bypassed the front steps and tested the side gate's latch, a...

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REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE

Weekly Contest #373

The second time our mother told us that humans might not know where they came from, my sister laughed. We were sitting on her bed on a rainy Sunday afternoon, the three of us squeezed under the same blanket even though we were far too old for it. My sister was lying across the foot of the bed, scrolling through her phone and I was sitting beside Mother, listening. Mother had always been a storyteller. Not the kind who read from books. She preferred stories that had no endings, the kind that left you arguing about them long after she had fi...

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Touch Nothing Marked in Red

Weekly Contest #373

"Don't go," said my grandmother, not looking up from her crossword. "Every girl who walks into that shop after dark comes home in love, and never with anyone sensible." Nobody takes Granny Bridie seriously. She also believes the toaster listens to her and that you should never trust a man who owns more than one scarf. So when my best friend Aoife slid two black tickets across the kitchen table, THE BOOKBINDER'S BRIDE: an immersive dark romance. One night only. Come alone, or not at all. I laughed. "It's theatre, Gran. Actors. In a bookshop."...

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When the Night Wind Howls

Weekly Contest #373

“Rose, does this young man of yours know how to tell time?” Rose swallowed the panic threatening to take over her voice. Thankfully, it was her mother who spoke. “Arthur, it’s only ten minutes. And he is meeting us for the first time. You probably don’t remember what that’s like, dear, but I think we can cut him a little slack, under the circumstances.” Rose breathed easier when her mother gave her a wink and her father resumed his reading. “I think I’ll wait for Roderick outside.” As Rose made her exit, her parents exchanged amused expre...

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The Warning that went Unheard

Weekly Contest #373

The cold gnawed at my bones that night, a sharp and brittle chill Florida was never meant to know. I stood outside the plant, watching my breath fog in the air, thinking of the shuttle resting on the pad at Cape Canaveral—the Challenger, a symbol of ambition and human reach. Yet all I could see was the frost forming on the O‑rings, a quiet warning nature had carved in ice. I had spent my life chasing precision—numbers, tolerances, equations that told the truth even when people preferred not to hear it. But that night, the truth felt heavier ...

11 likes 1 comment 1
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A Beautiful Sunny Day

Weekly Contest #373

I’m such a messy, absent-minded sort of guy that sometimes I can’t even find my glasses when I wake up—glasses with bottle-thick lenses. That was exactly what happened when I heard someone banging on the door. At the first knock I didn’t even blink, because I was sleeping deeply. But at the second, third, and fourth, I opened my eyes and shuddered in time with each one. These weren’t ordinary knocks, the kind that say, “I was just passing by to see if you were home.” They were more along the lines of, “Get up, you lazy bastard, or I’ll drag ...

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The Hike To L'eau Michel

Weekly Contest #373

“Watch yourselves past the last river marker,” the old man said, his eyes half closed under the glaring sunlight. “The bush never forgets, and it don’t like visitors who don’t know how to tread light.” “Every guide from here to Matura say the same thing,” Mark said. “This is not we first hike Mr. Hosein. We ain't amateurs.” “I not talking about that,” the old man replied. “There are spirits in the forest that-” “Really?” Mark asked. “Jumbie stories?” ​The group laughed. Mark laughed the loudest as he adjusted the strap of his heavy backpack....

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