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Write a story in which the weather takes an unexpected turn.

Posted in Dramatic on Dec 5, 2025

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✍️ 46 stories

Slippery Nonsense and Other Atmospheric Crimes

Winner of Contest #332 🏆

They say the British complain about the weather at least three times a day.Personally, I consider that an underestimation bordering on slander.I complain about the weather the way other people hydrate: constantly, instinctively, and with a faint sense of moral duty.It’s one of my most finely honed talents, practically a calling.Too hot. Too cold. Too windy. Not windy enough.The drizzle is rude. The cloud cover is smug. The frost feels judgmental.Some people complain recreationally. I complain as if the climate owes me money.Until last Tuesda...

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Orphan In A Storm

Submitted to Contest #332

Winter’s cold eyes seemed to watch her from the other side of the glass. When Rhea opened the blinds, the garden crouched under a hard, pewter sky—colourless, waiting like an adversary she’d never agreed to fight. Even the air seemed poised to steal something from her if she stepped outside. She drew her dressing gown tight and muttered the dreaded word—Christmas. It offered little relief; it merely voiced the echo of a life that felt unreachable, though saying it aloud shifted something inside her chest. Every year, she and Lyndsey had stoo...

38 likes 23 comments 23
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Moon Over Miami

Submitted to Contest #332

Moon Over Miami“Honestly, Officer. I didn't intentionally moon all the residents on Miami Street. It was an unfortunate accident. A comedy of errors, actually, you might say. An innocent incident spinning out of control. I apologize if I traumatized any unsuspecting bystanders. I simply couldn't help it. My hands were tied, er, maybe my feet were tied. Anyway, I was tangled up, you see. I can't believe you want to arrest me for... what was it again? Indecent exposure? I may be somewhat out of shape but 'indecent'? My recent weight loss may h...

37 likes 38 comments 38
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Windchill

Submitted to Contest #332

MARA The first flakes fell soft and lazy, like ash from something already burned out. Mara watched them melt on the glass before Alex’s wipers could touch them. It gave her somewhere to look that wasn't his profile."This weekend went fast," she said.She tried to sound light, like someone who hadn't spent three days waiting for a conversation that never happened."Mm."Alex kept his eyes on the road. His voice wasn't cold, exactly. It was careful. The same buffer tone he had used for months.She tucked her fingers into her sleeves. The heat...

33 likes 10 comments 10
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The Veritas Gale

Submitted to Contest #332

The blue vanished from the sky first, sucked away like paint up a vacuum hose. Then the green bled out of the grass, leaving the world looking like a charcoal sketch. Vincent looked at his wife, terrifyingly certain that when the wind hit her, she would turn grey, proving their marriage was dead.Vincent gripped the steering wheel of the leased SUV until his knuckles turned the color of milk. The car cost eight hundred dollars a month. It was money they did not have, but appearances were the currency of the neighborhood, and Vincent was a man...

29 likes 19 comments 19
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Moira Hates Winter

Submitted to Contest #332

The summer of '76 did it for me, back when everyone was still imperfectly alive. My father, an infrequent visitor, chose that year of all years to convert the loft into a living space. The image of him lying prone, slick with sweat while unravelling a bale of fibreglass for the lower rafters is sharper than other memories I have of him.It was also the year I went on a class trip to the Welsh borders. It was the last act of our primary school days before we had to grow up in September. Some of my friends fainted on a walk we took on the secon...

22 likes 23 comments 23
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How Valkyries Are Made

Submitted to Contest #332

Title: How Valkyries Are MadeHilde had abandoned the old gods—abandoned her oath—and now the storm came for her.Salt spray lashed her, but she didn’t flinch.She was already soaked; fear was the only thing she refused to wear.The longship lurched, hurled skyward by a wave, and her stomach twisted with it—sick as a dog that had fed on the dead.She gripped the rope as the wind bayed around her, thunder pounding like war-hooves across the clouds.The rope snapped.It ripped through her palms, flaying flesh. Hilde slammed against the deck as lightn...

17 likes 5 comments 5
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Holland Gray

Submitted to Contest #332

Gray season is upon us…Not dramatic, not heavy, just gray. Holland has a particular kind of gray that feels like someone dimmed the world a couple of clicks lower than it needs to be. The lake is close enough that you can almost feel it in the air, but not close enough to see it from my porch. You just get the mood.I had settled into my chair like I do most days when I can steal a little time. Same spot. Same view of the backyard. Same small collection of things within reach on the little table next to me… a cup of coffee going lukewarm, a b...

16 likes 1 comment 1
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The Last Rain

Submitted to Contest #332

The Last RainThe first time the city announced there might be rain, the whole block went out into the street just to look at the sky. It was habit more than hope. For ten years the sky had been a flat, chalky blue that made the buildings look like cardboard cutouts. The sun rose, burned, sank. Clouds were something you saw in old pictures, the kind with soft edges that looked like someone had painted them in afterward.From my third floor window, I watched neighbors shade their eyes and squint upward. Scarves covered their mouths against the ...

13 likes 1 comment 1
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Weather the Storm

Submitted to Contest #332

The storm did not begin with thunder. It began with a whisper. Mara was alone on the hillside, cutting herbs for her mother’s remedies. The sky had been clear moments earlier, a lazy blue stretching over the valley. Now clouds gathered over the ridge, coiling inward like a hand preparing to close into a fist. She heard the voice before she saw the storm—soft, curling through the grass like smoke. “Child… come closer…” Mara spun, basket pressed tight to her chest. No one stood behind her. Only the slow-building bruise of cloud overhead. Her b...

12 likes 6 comments 6
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When I Arrived It Rained

Submitted to Contest #332

The first time I noticed it, I told myself it was a coincidence. I stepped off the bus and the sky, which had been pale and empty all morning, darkened as if remembering something it had forgotten. Rain came down in a thin, indecisive sheet—not enough to soak, just enough to register. I stood there, backpack slipping on my shoulder, watching the pavement freckle. A woman beside me sighed. “Of course.”By the time I reached my apartment, the rain had stopped. The clouds thinned. Sunlight returned, embarrassed. I forgot about it.— The second ti...

12 likes 4 comments 4
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Fairview to Orchard

Submitted to Contest #332

I wake up before the alarm, 4:27 glowing on the clock. Three minutes to spare. Linda’s still asleep, curled toward my side like always, so I slide out of bed slow so I don’t wake her. The floor’s cold on my feet, but that’s nothing new for a storm morning. I stand up and my knees remind me I’m not a kid anymore, just a little stiffness to work through. I head toward the window and look out at Fairview Ave.—the snow’s just starting, and the salt trucks are already moving. They say we’re getting a historic blizzard today, supposed to rival the...

11 likes 2 comments 2
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Frostlake's Treasure

Submitted to Contest #332

The first thing Korax noticed was that the ice over Frostlake didn’t quite reflect the sky.Snow lay piled in drifts along the shore, but the lake itself was a broad, black sheet, smooth as glass, with thick veins of cloudy white frozen in its depths. The mountains loomed around it, their shoulders buried in winter. Above, the sky was a pale, hard blue that begrudgingly promised a clear day.Apollo snorted, his breath steaming as Korax guided the black stallion down the last rocky slope toward the makeshift camp. Halfway down the slope, the wi...

11 likes 3 comments 3
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Vagrancy

Submitted to Contest #332

You recovered this letter from a frozen stainless steel container buried in Antarctic ice. Rest assured, I am not writing you out of sentimentality. Rather, I have discovered that even at the end of times, a scientist feels obligated to file one last report.For the last two years, I have lived at the South Pole engaged in the study of neutrino particles. Given that I could not possibly know your educational background, I will proceed assuming you know little about neutrinos. Neutrinos are so thoroughly uninterested in their surroundings that...

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The Mountain Encounter

Submitted to Contest #332

Levi heaved himself back onto the trail, bloodied and exhausted. This was as good as it was going to get tonight. If anyone was going to be searching for him soon, this was going to be the best place to stay for awhile. Huddling up under a large pine tree to cradle his broken ribs, he closed his eyes, trying to remember the intriguing beauty he had just witnessed. The morning before, Levi was up horseback riding deep in the wild mountains with his close friend, Aiden, when he realized he had to go back to the lake for his hunting knife he’d...

10 likes 2 comments 2
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