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Center your story around a character who can’t tell the difference between their dreams and reality.

Posted in Dramatic on Oct 17, 2025

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✍️ 97 stories

Halfway Home

Submitted to Contest #325

The white door floated above her head. The walls shifted from side to side. It was dark, not too dark to see, but too dark to see clearly. Something felt wrong. The air was heavy, like she was breathing through cloth. Voices stirred in the distance, weak and trembling. “Mom, please.” Lily tried to turn toward the sound, but her body felt sluggish and uncooperative. Her head ached. Her throat burned. “Oh, Daniel,” she whispered, or thought she did. “Where are you?” “Mom, I love you.” Daniel. Her oldest. The one who never showed emotion. The o...

33 likes 16 comments 16
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Bad Coffee, Hearing Aids, and the Grim Reaper

Submitted to Contest #325

The gnarled oak stood resolute, its branches splayed like mourning fingers. Underneath, the Grim Reaper stood silent, his tattered cloak devouring the dawn’s frail light. In an outstretched hand he held a scythe, its blade gleaming with a cold, prismatic sheen. From the kitchen window, Frank watched, willing the Reaper to go away. His weathered hands clutched a chipped coffee mug, its warmth a fleeting shield to the empty house. “You know what he wants,” Mary said. “Give it to him.” Frank didn’t hear her, too busy staring daggers at the Rea...

32 likes 8 comments 8
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Lilou

Submitted to Contest #325

He was lost; but lost in a benign way. When he had stepped out of his hotel located in the Saint Pierre district of Bordeaux, and let his legs do the walking, never mindful of any destination, without watching the time, and without any thought or precondition. Just walking in a state of emptiness, a blindness of mind, for any intended direction was a distraction. He pondered his many troubles, life’s burdens lay heavy each proceeding day, his head and heart ached, gnawing slowly on his soul. The Saint-Pierre district dates back to the days o...

25 likes 20 comments 20
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It could just be the wind...

Submitted to Contest #325

So, this is it. The end. I looked up at the house, and it couldn’t be any creepier. My aunt had always been an eccentric old kook, and this place fit her perfectly. The mansion loomed like something stolen from The Addams Family, its towers leaning down as though judging my worth before I even set foot inside.On the right, a glass structure clung to the house — a greenhouse, maybe? Hard to tell through the grime and ivy. Whatever it was, it was mine now.The wind shifted, a cold push at my back, urging me forward. I shivered. It felt less lik...

22 likes 24 comments 24
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Loving

Submitted to Contest #325

Loving“No, that’s not what I mean. No, no… I mean that I love them. I’ve beenso lucky to have been able to have someone to love so much.”-Bessie (Diane Keaton); Marvin’s Room “Let’s hit the bars, Henry. The ladies are waiting.”“You go, Jack. I’m tired of trolling for women at the bars and clubs. I want a more meaningful relationship.”“The girls I meet at the bars hold a lot of meaning for me. A man has his needs, you know.”“No, I’m good here tonight.”“Your loss, Henry. I’m feeling lucky tonight.”“You always feel lucky.”“You’re not going to f...

20 likes 7 comments 7
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Silly Girl

Submitted to Contest #325

Pet wheels the trolley. It’s what she does. It’s not everything she does, but the patients follow a Pavlovian instinct to open their mouths and swallow their pills when Pet comes rattling through.She is thirty but she looks fifty. When she is fifty, she will carry on looking fifty until she dies. Some people are just like that. Born to middle-age.Pet is devoted to religion, but there is no evidence that religion is devoted to her. There is no room in her head for allegory, and so she sucks up the contradictions through a single straw. She do...

20 likes 13 comments 13
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2:13

Submitted to Contest #325

In the darkness just before sunup, Patrick heard someone breathe his name. For a moment she was there again. Stillness gathered, thick and close. Years had passed since that night, yet the house remembered. Cold and waiting, it seemed to lean inward as if listening too. Pine walls rose close around him, boards marked by years of smoke and winter. The ceiling cracked when the cold settled. Through the small window, cottonwoods lined the ridge, their branches drawn white against the sky. Everything Lynn had chosen still stood. Everything that ...

18 likes 11 comments 11
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Last Stop Before Morning

Submitted to Contest #325

When Mick woke up, the bus had changed drivers again.The fluorescent lights overhead stuttered their familiar seizure, casting everything in that particular shade of public-transit yellow that made healthy people look tubercular. His mouth tasted of copper pennies and yesterday's coffee. The seat beneath him groaned with that specific vinyl complaint that belonged to every city bus since 1982.Christ, how long was I out?He rubbed his eyes hard enough to see phosphenes bloom behind his lids. Through the smeared window, streetlights blurred pas...

18 likes 8 comments 8
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The Entry Point

Submitted to Contest #325

I lie on the bed as if fastened by a psych ward’s canvas strap. Only—I am free to move, and the sheet I tucked into the crook of my neck for comfort has abandoned me.It’s the hammering in my chest I recognize first. As strong as the final sprint to the marathon’s finish line, my heart fists against my ribs. I gulp for air, heaving, pleading for each breath to fill me, but everything pushed in is forced out just as quickly. I can’t get in enough.My eyes open, and nothing changes. Open or closed, the darkness is complete, total, smothering.My ...

16 likes 7 comments 7
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The Space Between

Submitted to Contest #325

Strips of daylight pierce through a crack in the curtains, dragging me awake. My mouth snaps open and closed, trying to summon moisture as my throat burns for water. My head throbs with a thick, heavy ache and I feel anchored, chained to the bed. I scan the array of fading yellow stars on the white ceiling above me and a small wave of relief washes over my paralysed body. It’s real. I’m still in my room. I need water desperately. Attempting to move, I muster no more than a few wiggles at the tips of my fingers and toes. Scanning the rest of ...

15 likes 6 comments 6
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Again

Submitted to Contest #325

And the routine continues.I wake up to rustling leaves above me. “Where am I now?” I open my eyes to a squint, partially covering them with my hand, and take in the intense light of the sun shining into the crevices between my fingers. The sky, nearly void of all clouds, looms above. Its boundaries seemingly endless, engulfing me.I want to scream, but I don’t. “You are too mature for screaming,” I tell myself, my hand now at the side of my scalp, slowly running my fingers through my hair.Trees surround me—“I want to see my son”—and the deafe...

15 likes 4 comments 4
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DOLLY AND THE DAY THAT NEVER WAS

Submitted to Contest #325

Dolly Jameson had always been a woman of routine. Fifty-two years old, single, with one faithful cat named ZoZo and a job she didn’t exactly love but did very well. Every morning, without fail, her alarm clock rang at exactly 6:15 a.m. She would rise, stretch her arms toward the ceiling, whisper a quick prayer, and then shuffle to the kitchen to make tea.Her cat ZoZo—fat, grey, and full of judgment—would always watch her from the top of the stairs as though supervising. Then, together, they’d begin their synchronized routine: Dolly humming g...

15 likes 2 comments 2
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Memories

Submitted to Contest #325

Shuffling around in his room, Joe tried his best to be quiet. He laced up his boots, then tiptoed to the side of the bed. He studied Nancy’s face as she slept. I wish I could stay, but work… He leaned down and gave her a soft kiss on the cheek. Walking to his daughter’s room, he liked to make sure all was well before he left each morning. Even in the darkness, the bright pink walls reflected little Melissa’s personality. Once he saw the rise and fall of her chest he could leave. He slipped out, walked outside, and locked the front door. Joe ...

14 likes 4 comments 4
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Edwinaworld

Submitted to Contest #325

Once upon a time there was a baby girl born in a small city, a Sunny Tuesday Of June at nine a.m. Edwina was unexpected, at least to the parents. Whereas she was growing up she could observe the dynamics of her family: her older sisters fighting all the time, and her father yelling at her mother every single day. One of the things she used to do was to watch TV without paying attention to them. They were so annoying! But there were times she felt good daydreaming; about another family, she couldn’t stop thinking of a funny family and with a ...

14 likes 3 comments 3
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Mine… and Yours

Submitted to Contest #325

It was 12:57 a.m. The house was silent, save for the low hum of the air conditioner.A wave of nausea hit me, stomach twisting. I threw back the blanket, stumbled toward the bathroom, hand pressed to my mouth—and the tap was dry.“Oh God… the tank must be empty again,” I muttered.Grumbling, I slipped on my slippers and stepped into the cool night toward the water motor switch by the back wall. The moonless sky and buzzing porch light cast long, trembling shadows.A shadow glided from right to left just beyond the gate. My breath hitched, a cold...

14 likes 9 comments 9
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