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“Center your story around someone who finally achieves their biggest goal — only to realize it cost them everything.”

Posted in Dramatic on Mar 20, 2026

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✍️ 68 stories

Little Rats

Weekly Contest #347

Dry blood stained the flagstones. I sighed. Such a mess. Behind me I heard a nervous whimper. I turned to the cowering servants. They were all kneeling. None of them looked at me. They used to love me. Not anymore. The Emperor—no, the former Emperor—Starr knelt on the stone, his mouth curling into a sneer as I approached. He didn’t bow his head.‘Princess Sophie, the crown suits you.’I met his gaze and reached for the pendant around my neck.‘I should have put you down years ago,’ he growled.‘Yes, you should have.’ I unsheathed my black glass ...

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The Last Prayer

Weekly Contest #347

According to the Internet, belief is the acceptance that something is true or real, often without requiring complete proof or evidence. In other words, it is the feeling of certainty—trusting something even when it cannot be fully proven. For Caspian, his belief had always been unwavering. As long as he could remember, his mind clung tightly to the things it decided were true. For example, he believed that if he hadn’t asked his father—on his eleventh birthday—for the new Mario game he wanted so badly, his father would still be alive. Anothe...

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The weight of judgment

Weekly Contest #347

“I hereby appoint you as Minos’ successor, the new supreme judge of the Underworld.”I can still hear the words of my great-uncle of the third degree echoing through the endless expanses of his realm, even though they were spoken an entire human year ago—which feels like an eternity to me.Now I sit on my throne in the magnificent courtroom of the Underworld, tossing grapes into the air out of sheer boredom and catching them in my mouth.My great-uncle is Hades, and his realm—also called Hades—is the Underworld, where the souls of the deceased ...

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The Beautiful Girl

Weekly Contest #347

"She is the most beautiful baby!" Charlotte's mother, Mandy, heard it daily after she'd given birth to the baby girl. And truly, the child was something special. She was a C-section, so her head was perfectly round. Her hair was black as night, and there was so much of it. Charlotte's eyes were sky blue. Mandy hoped Charlotte's eyes stayed light and bright. Though it was early days, it seemed Charlotte was tracking objects and people around her, already tuned in to her surroundings. Her beauty and awareness were arresting. With the amount o...

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To The Top

Weekly Contest #347

Arturo did it. He was finally the ruler of the Air Demon Kingdom of Arrownite. Now that he cast out Antonio and his family he could finally run things the right way. However, once everything settled down he hadn’t realized how much was involved in running a kingdom. It felt like every morning there was some new problem to solve. Someone always needed something and his ideas weren’t seen as inventive like the first time he bought them up. Arturo thought that since he was the ruler all of his ideas would be accepted with no question like Anton...

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Consumed by Purpose

Weekly Contest #347

The blood of the fallen smothered the meadow of white tulips, sullying their radiance with crimson. Bodies of friend and foe littered the once pristine field. Rainier distanced himself from the iron taste of death around him. Justice was at hand, and he would deliver it himself. Rainier would avenge the slaughter of his brother, no matter the cost. A towering figure, dressed in tattered clothing, stood among the minor demons, slaughtering the poorly armed farmers. Protrusions and growths reached for the heavens from his target’s ruined body,...

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A Beautiful Lie

Weekly Contest #347

If there was one thing Elijah learned about anxiety, it was that your mind could concoct it anytime, anywhere. From your most private moments to the middle of planning the next evacuation. Unfortunately, for Elijah, a panic attack dared to challenge him during a battle in Fullerton. The team lugged him and hid in a house until his temporary paralysis from a laser beam passed.Before, the night terrors and anxiety attacks were exclusively memories from family or Sensei Drake. Now, past battles diluted the pool of nightmares his mind could draw...

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It’s Not About the Ribbons

Weekly Contest #347

They don’t tell you that trophies are hollow. Trophies, ribbons. Those things that marked that you’d accomplished something as an equestrian. That’s not why I wanted to ride horses. What mattered was the love I had for my pony, the trust I placed in him to carry me to the other side of my first jump. What mattered was the hollow clip, clop of his hooves on the dirt path that led into the forest, where I’d spent an afternoon away from the pressures of school and confusion of growing up as a little girl in the world. When I was with my pony, t...

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La Pura Vida

Weekly Contest #347

Okay. Time to make a decision. Life is short; do what you want.Retta used to believe Mom’s advice meant always eating dessert first; Retta loved her sweets, especially anything fragrant, chocolate or marshmallow crème. Those were the halcyon days, she now thought wistfully.Mom crossed over almost 20 years ago; Retta still feels her absence in the hole in her chest she left behind, still misses Mom weekly.“That’s an improvement!” she realized, speaking aloud to the small group of friends gathered in her sunny living room.“I used to miss her h...

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The Price of Everything

Weekly Contest #347

The day I won the Olympic games was the day I truly lost.I had always been a good gymnast. I knew it from the moment I stepped in the gym that I loved it; loved the smell of chalk, of feeling weightless, of the sweat that stuck to my skin as proof of my dedication and strength. I went into the JO, or Junior Olympics, program as soon as I could, so excited I couldn’t stop talking about it, thinking about it, even dreaming about it. I walked in with the rest of the kids my age and together we looked out on our dreams realized- the older girls ...

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Lost focus

Weekly Contest #347

With a thunderous crack, the soccer ball was launched in his direction. The boys watched him, their feet poised to trap the ball the moment he kicked it back. He swung his leg to the ball — but the ball soared right past his foot. It landed in the grass a short distance away, rolling lazily until it came to a rest within a small cluster of daisies. The muffled shouts of the boys reached him from a distance. With a half-hearted toss, he threw the ball back toward the group. His eyes were fixed only on the daisies: a slender green stem, a tiny...

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Respectfully, Your Cousin

Weekly Contest #347

My dear Benjamin,There will come a time in your life when you realize rebellions don’t stop power; they simply transfer it.There are few I would trust with what I am about to write. Fewer still who would understand it. You are, I think, the only one who might be both.As the closest friend of Raymond Duxley, I am a reliable source of all information concerning him, the man who led a rebellion which overturned three countries. No one knows I am writing to you, of all people. I trust you will keep our correspondence a secret.I will be the first...

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This Soul-sucking Stardom

Weekly Contest #347

Lights flash around me, the bright, pompous echoes of a life of fame fading behind me as I rush into the bathroom and crash into a stall, leaning against the cold tile to wake me into reality. Today is the day that’s eluded me for years. The day I’ve dreamed of ever since I started acting. A huge film with the biggest names of actors stationed right next to me. A lead role with the hottest actress in the industry. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted. It’s everything I’ve ever worked for. Everything I ever cared about. So, why do I feel so unhap...

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Peepacheep's Rebellion

Weekly Contest #347

“Attention, everyone!” Peepacheep, a red and white bantam rooster, cried. The fowls gathered in the dusty yard ignored him. “Attention!” he exclaimed, louder this time. No one so much as ruffled a feather in acknowledgement. Anger rose in Peepacheep’s small breast—it swelled . . . and swelled . . . until it burst forth in the highest, squeakiest crow ever heard on Preservation Valley Farm“Err-er-er-errrr!” That got the other’s attention—which was good—but then they burst out laughin...

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Will we all die wondering?

Weekly Contest #347

The operating mask obscured his face as he leaned over the body of the man lying on the surgery table.‘There’s the culprit,’ he said, and moved his head to focus the torch onto the right spot. ‘Looks inflamed, but no sign of permanent damage.’His words bounced around the empty operating theatre and returned back to him undelivered.‘Swab count at five. Clamp.’ He continued to narrate the proceedings to himself. ‘Snip just above the clamp.’The arms of his autonomous surgical system predictively responded before the words left his lips.‘Irrigat...

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