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Center your story around someone who’s at a loss for words, or unable to speak.

Posted in Dramatic on Mar 14, 2025

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✍️ 75 stories

The Quiet Presence

Submitted to Contest #294

In a quiet village nestled between the hills and the bay, life had its rhythm, its routines. People liked the slow-paced days, the charm of the tree-lined streets, and the smell of fresh bread from the bakery on the corner. And then, one day, she arrived.  No one knew her name, where she came from, or what she was. She just appeared, wandering into town one breezy afternoon, moving with a strange, jerky gait, like she wasn’t entirely sure of her own legs.  The townsfolk didn’t recognize her face because, in truth, she had none. Ins...

10 likes 3 comments 3
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Caught in the 4k

Submitted to Contest #294

3/17/25 The Accidental Post: It’s been a few days since I put my feelings about you in my notes app, but here I am again. Maybe that means I’m learning to cope or deal with my feelings better about you, I don’t know. But I’m back and obviously upset about something so…For starters, of course at the end of the day all I want for you is to be happy. You deserve everything in the world that is great. I was just posting on snapchat about my roommate troubles while in the gym when suddenly I guess fate decided that it wanted me to see your a...

10 likes 2 comments 2
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The Storm Within

Submitted to Contest #294

Cindy jolted awake, her chest tightening as an otherworldly green glow illuminated the foot of her bed. Her breath hitched. A figure—still, silent, and unnervingly familiar—hovered in the darkness, its hollow eyes fixed on her. Fear clawed at her throat, but she forced herself to blink, to reason. It’s just a dream, she told herself. Yet the icy sting of her arm pinched by unseen hands, the mournful wail of the wind battering the windows, and the suffocating weight in her gut screamed otherwise. This wasn’t a dream. It was something far wors...

9 likes 2 comments 2
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Haunting

Submitted to Contest #294

Jack couldn't speak - he could only scream as he woke up to the sound of his mother's voice whispering to him from the corner of his dark bedroom. Of course, it wasn't actually his mother, he knew that. How could it be, when she had died in a car accident just a little over a week earlier? 'Jack? Come over here, Jack. You can see me, can't you? Come over here, child... ' His chest was heavy, his bladder loose with fear. Looking over into the corner as he flailed amidst his perspiration-damp sheets, he realised that he could indeed ...

9 likes 0 comments 0
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Gold Lamé

Submitted to Contest #294

“Hi! This is my seat, yeah, 32B. So… let me just shove my bag up here. Okay! So what do you do? Me, well, I’m a backup singer for The Reversibles. I know, I know, it sounds like a line of anti-aging creams. It wasn’t my idea. Whatever.You’re probably wondering ‘Why backup?’ Exactly - you’re giving me that look. The one that’s a bit of pity and a lotta confusion. The look that wants to ask, ‘Don’t you wanna be the lead singer?’Well, no. Nope, nope, I’m just fine where I am, thank you very much. That’s what I tell you and everyone else.Hang on...

8 likes 5 comments 5
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Derealize

Submitted to Contest #294

This cannot be happening. This cannot be happening.  My heart begins to race. My face and palms begin to sweat. Everything feels so surreal. I feel like someone punched me awake. Like they just threw life my way and told me to deal with it. To process every emotion at 190 miles per hour. To figure out how to live and deal with myself when I hate my entire existence. Every second of every day. I never had the chance to just be, to just exist. Each thought taunting me, telling me that I do not deserve to exist, that I am a burden on every...

8 likes 5 comments 5
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My Two Words

Submitted to Contest #294

Nobody mess with my dinosaurs. I have them set up just the way I want them. Yes, I see you sitting close to where I’m playing, I’m using the mantle and the top of the bookshelf to set my dinosaurs up the way I want them. Don’t touch them. I don’t want you to reach for them, smiling, you want them and they’re mine. You say something. Your two words are “Let’s play” but I don’t want you to take my toys.“NO, STOP!”You understand my words, smile, and leave the room. Ahh, now I can get back to what I was doing. I’ll let you know if I need anythin...

8 likes 1 comment 1
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Their loving feeling....

Submitted to Contest #294

That summer was their first love. Upon reflection, Deidre Barnett considered now that it had been true love. That first glance at a summer party had her love bound.Deidre, currently a grey-haired senior matron, was a resident as a retirement village home unit. She paused her reading of her book. She liked sitting by herself, a widow now, there as her family of three adults children lived for away. They were all so busy with their daily lives and their own growing families. Deidre was a great reader, a reticent introvert, who met most of her ...

7 likes 2 comments 2
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Dog Instincts

Submitted to Contest #294

As a dog my instincts were always spot on. I knew when a rat approaching my food bowl suddenly feels danger. In the form of me pouncing and eating its head. You see, the bowl was always empty. And I was always starving. And chained. Killing the rats was my job. And my only means of sustenance. The leaking tap where the garden hose connected to the tap provided a puddle of mostly fresh water. I am a breed called a Heinz 57. And I’ve been chained to this post…in this yard…since I was a young pup. I’d heard in the shelter that Hoomans...

7 likes 1 comment 1
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Your Name

Submitted to Contest #294

I sit on my usual bench in the dog park. There are so many dogs here today—chasing, jumping, lunging, barking. Spring is here. The cherry trees overlooking the bench blossom, their petals rocking with the breeze and drifting onto my lap. It is my happy place.My gaze jumps from dog to dog. A cream-colored lab attempts to mount a tall brindle mix, who, surprised but determined, flings every part of himself to shake off the offender and, in the process, knocks over a shih tzu busy butt-sniffing a corgi. The corgi, freed from the sniffer glued t...

7 likes 2 comments 2
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The Weight of Silence

Submitted to Contest #294

Words. They slip through my fingers like sand, elusive and fickle. I reach for them, but they scatter before I can shape them into meaning.I have so much to say, yet I sit in the car seat, mute. My soon-to-be ex-boyfriend grips the present I gave him before uttering my last words so tight his knuckles pale, his breath uneven. I glare at him, though I don’t know why. It’s not anger I feel. Or maybe it is.I started this. I think we should break up.The sentence had fallen from my lips as if someone else had spoken it. As if I were an observer, ...

7 likes 2 comments 2
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The Old Man and the Magpie

Submitted to Contest #294

THE OLD MAN AND THE MAGPIE Back then we didn’t have Google Maps or any other kind of technology to find our way around. We relied on paper maps which were not always reliable. That was the case on the day I met the odd duo. It happened in the summer of 1976 when the country sweltered in a heatwave. I think it was in the beginning of July as I usually went on holiday midway through it. The heat also took its toll on the van-a nineteen fifties green Bedford. It crawled up the mountainside, wheezing like a sixty-a-day chain smoker. Where the ...

7 likes 2 comments 2
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Mystic Maggie's Hair Salon

Submitted to Contest #294

I parked my car outside of Mystic Maggie’s Hair Salon, wondering if the ad I saw claiming “Heartbreak healed or your money back!” was true. It was a tiny hole-in-the-wall joint sandwiched between a Greek restaurant and an insurance agent’s office in a strip mall that had its heyday a decade or two ago. The parking lot was nearly empty on a Tuesday morning, which I felt didn’t bode well for the efficacy of Maggie’s services. Nonetheless, I took a deep breath and sighed, willing to try anything to erase my pain. Mystic Maggie’s Hair Salon was ...

7 likes 6 comments 6
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Sound Magic. A gift? Or a curse?

Submitted to Contest #294

Trigger Warning: Talks of death and emotional distress. Birds chirp, dogs bark and the people in the villagers exchange their daily conversations. The breeze blowing through the trees or hooves clacking on the stone roads—I can hear all the sounds around me. The sounds of nature are soothing. However, the noises the people make are unsettling. I've never been allowed to make a noise myself, at least not around people. I was gifted with an affinity for sound magic at a base skill level of 5. It's rare for someone to be gifted with such a high...

6 likes 0 comments 0
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The Words Starting With A

Submitted to Contest #294

It’s not as if Atticus was ever much of a talker, even when he was younger. He was always one to keep to himself, shying away from all social interactions. However, this did not mean he wouldn’t speak at all. If you were to bring up one of his special interests, he could talk for hours on end with few pauses and little hesitancy. Of course, after he had finished jabbering his little heart out, he would always be quite embarrassed about how verbose he had just been. Atticus was always quiet, but he was kind. He may have been shy, but he was s...

6 likes 3 comments 3
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