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“Set your story in the final hour (or hours) before a deadline, departure, or ceremony.”

Posted in Dramatic on Aug 7, 2026

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✍️ 44 stories

The Written Words

Weekly Contest #367

IThe wall was colder than Joseph expected. He placed his palm against it and left it there. Stone did not argue. It did not ask whether a Republic could be proclaimed into existence, whether six days might alter six hundred years, whether men had been brave or foolish or both. It was simply cold.He took his hand away. The movement pulled beneath the bandage at his neck. He waited. The pain came late now, a dull tightening under the cloth, followed by the familiar need to cough. He bent forward on the narrow bed and held the handkerchief to h...

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Here Comes The Groom

Weekly Contest #367

Everything is perfect. T-minus one hour to showtime. “Yeah I’m headed out the door right now,” I reassure Brittiny on the phone. “Will you relax it’s going to be perfect.” “Love you too,” I hang up the phone and stop briefly on my way out the door to glance at my own reflection. The curls of my moustache are perfectly symmetrical, the knot on my tie is flawless, even my teeth seem whiter than normal. I grin at myself in the mirror and wiggle my eyebrows. That’s when I notice it, there’s a single moustache hair sticking straight up. I can fee...

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Summers-End

Weekly Contest #367

Alice awoke to the feeling of a blackbird pecking gently at her face. Blind in the pre-dawn darkness, she groaned and weakly slapped at the bird."Crumb, get off me," she said, "it's too early."The bird responded with a warble, hopping back and forth on her twiggy legs."I know you're excited, but why don't you get started on collecting material for the garland?"The response was a happy trill from the bird and she hopped out the window to take flight into the misty trees.As Alice slowly fought her way out from the fugue of sleep, the bustling ...

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Never Coming Back

Weekly Contest #367

“You wanna spend the night?” she asked me, even though she had friend-zoned me years before. Of course I wanted to spend the night, and she knew it, so I did. It was everything I ever imagined it would be. I have no idea if she felt the same way, but that night, she wanted me. She convinced herself that I was something special.I had the Peace Corps to thank. Getting accepted to the Peace Corps was my golden ticket, the closest thing I’ll ever have to a lottery win. All I had to say was, “I’m going to the Peace Corps after graduation” and peo...

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I Tainted You

Weekly Contest #367

By the time I clambered up the ladder, the first ray of sunshine ambushed me. I shielded my eyes. It was a mistake to have prematurely removed the blinds so early in the morning when I’d vehemently cursed the architect responsible for this haphazard window since primary school. And that was only because I almost fell on my head that one time. Floorboards creaked as I wandered to the shattered window. Birds warbled along to the rustling of trees. Then and there, the gears of my artistic mind whirred at the appeal of this view. Using this shat...

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The Reptilian Orchestra

Weekly Contest #367

 Today, I find myself backstage, sitting on a speaker about the size of a night table, holding a violin bow like a sword and staring at the clock on the wall, waiting to give the most critical performance of my year. How did I even end up in this strange, cold land? Have I ever chosen this, or has a wind stronger than me blown me to this very spot, to fulfil someone else's dreams? These thoughts come up uninvited while I am trying to mentally retrace a few tricky notes that I worry will escape my memory. 'Take a deep breath. This will c...

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The Last meal

Weekly Contest #367

The Last MealThe bread was still warm when his mother broke it.Vasco watched her hands do it — the same hands that had broken bread every morning of his life, the same small tear at the crust, the same offering of the larger half to him without a word about it, as if he were still a boy of nine and not a man of thirty-seven days from the edge of everything anyone in Sines or Lisbon had ever known. Outside, the sky over the Tagus was still more grey than gold. Somewhere down at Restelo, four ships sat low and patient against the tide, waiting...

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In a Holding Pattern

Weekly Contest #367

     The line seemed to slither as slowly as a desert rattlesnake stalking its prey as Jackson Tillman impatiently tapped his toe as he anxiously waited to board the 747 that would take him to Chicago and the most important meeting of his career. His fingers itched to open his laptop and begin calculating the commission on what probably would become the largest software sales contract of his life.      Aggressive foreign competition had caused earnings figures for his other colleagues to...

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Beyond the Walls

Weekly Contest #367

The only light in the outpost came from the fireplace. It crackled and glowed a golden pattern of shadows across the wood walls. Joel sat at the table and faced Cyrus whose eyes were cast down, thinking. Outside, the rain thrashed against the roof in violent waves and thunder cracked down. Joel glanced at the hourglass at the center of the table. They had thirty more minutes to make a decision yet he and Cyrus had not uttered a single word to each other since the King’s guards had presented them with the news. Joel c...

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The Conversion

Weekly Contest #367

The ConversionI rub the horizontal scar on my abdomen that looks like football laces. My fingers bump over one scar, then the next. The skin is numb. The blood loss was massive, as was the internal damage to my organs and spine. The right side of my body is permanently paralyzed.I awoke from a seven-week coma, endured months of useless rehab, and have been cooped up in this place since, but today I’ll be freed from this depressing room with dingy gray walls that are long overdue for a coat of paint.I close my eyes. The sounds of this place, ...

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Kiss, Marry, Kill

Weekly Contest #367

Get up. Get up. Get up. The words rang through her head like a cannon. The voice was loud and desperate and sounded nothing like her own. But she knew it was.  She groaned and rolled to her side. Blood dripped from the side of her forehead, smearing across the cement.  She scrambled against the ground with her scabbed hands and tried to get back on her feet. She could hear him coming toward her and was surprised by the anger that mauled through her.  Not panic. Not fear.  Red, hot, boiling fury.  She was going t...

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A New Life Awaits

Weekly Contest #367

I still can't believe that it's been six months since I received the email that would change my life forever. I was chosen to be one of 50,000 world citizens out of an application pool of over seventy million to board the first commercial relocation shuttle to Mars. After years of preparatory missions, the International Space Organization, or ISO, has completed humankind's first residential space colony. While many of the early settlers of the colony were engineers, biologists, and physicists, the lottery was open to any citizen who was will...

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Braids & Whiskers

Weekly Contest #367

Nestled in the crook of her belly, that’s my favourite place to be. Ruby mirrors my yawn from the other side of the duvet, and I sense a deep, delicious slumber approaching us both. I know it’s going to be a good one tonight because Dad’s working the night shift, and when Dad’s working the night shift, all bets are off and Ruby and I are allowed to sleep in the bed with Mama. It’s the only time we’re allowed because Dad says I snore too loudly. Sometimes, I’m in the depths of a dream and then I wake with a fright, only to find myself bundled...

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Before I Do

Weekly Contest #367

At 11:07 on the morning of her wedding, Claire Whitmore decided there were three possible outcomes to the day. She would marry Ben. Ben would eventually marry Maggie. Or her mother would murder all three of them before anyone made it to the altar. At the moment, option three appeared most likely. “Where are your shoes?” Claire looked down at herself. Seven thousand dollars’ worth of ivory lace cascaded from her waist to the floor, effectively concealing everything below her ankles and, Claire felt, making the question unnecessarily invasive....

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Drama....a village marriage

Weekly Contest #367

                  Drama… A Village MarriageI was sitting at my desk on the 38th floor, overlooking Manhattan, deeply engrossed in legal documents for an ongoing case, when my assistant put a call through from Trevor Backwell. I didn’t immediately register the name, but as I picked up the receiver, memories of my school and university years hit me like an express train.“Trevor? It can’t be!”“Harold, it is! How are you, old sport?”“Great! But why the call...

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