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Write about a secret that could thaw — or shatter — a relationship.

Posted in Dramatic on Nov 28, 2025

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✍️ 32 stories

The Sound of Ice Growing

Submitted to Contest #331

Part One – The Frost Winter in Eirik’s Landing isn't just cold. It’s quiet. By December the lake freezes solid, and the old folks say the ice gets hungry. They claim if you shout near the lakefront, the sound gets pulled down. Trapped. I always thought it was just a lie to keep kids off the thin ice.I don't think that anymore.You have to be careful what you say here. Because in April, when the thaw hits, the air screams. Arguments, confessions, prayers—three months of noise releasing at once. It sounds impossible. It is. But I’ve heard it.I...

44 likes 31 comments 31
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The Return

Submitted to Contest #331

I died on a Tuesday in a country my children couldn't find on a map, and for three years, that was the truest thing about me. Now I'm standing in the snow outside my own kitchen window, watching my wife laugh at something another man said. My daughter is seven now. She was four the last time I held her. The man sitting in my chair just cut her meat the way I used to, diagonal strokes, the way she likes.The cold doesn't touch me anymore. Not after thirty-one months in a cell where winter and summer felt the same. My boots sink into the fresh ...

31 likes 16 comments 16
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Sishuo

Submitted to Contest #331

“Open your eyes and look upon me!” The hollow voice carried the weight of a thousand blue moons. Dan reluctantly opened his eyelids and felt a cold shiver race up his spine. Standing before him was a tall slender phantom wearing a black hooded robe. His face was an empty shell—nothing more than a skull with hollow eye sockets. There was no doubt in Dan’s mind who the evil spirit was. Death. Dan quickly took in his surroundings. He was in a large oval chamber constructed from frozen bricks that shimmered a blue hue. In the middle of the room ...

28 likes 18 comments 18
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Winter Foxes

Submitted to Contest #331

EDIT: There's hints of violence and fighting. Erin pulled her goose-down coat tighter as the cold bit into her. When she’d first moved to Hokkaido, winter had felt like a personal attack—wind needling through every gap, snow piling up faster than she could shovel. She’d only planned to stay a year, teach English in Sapporo, go back to Toronto, and attend law school.That was before Yuki.He’d found her half-lost after a ski trip, shivering at the wrong bus stop in the dark, and guided her back to town—then somehow, smoothly, left with her num...

24 likes 11 comments 11
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The Color of Snow

Submitted to Contest #331

TW: Mild body horror, mentions of blood/child murdered Ask me what the color of snow is.I’ll tell you it’s blood-red. Always has been. I’m only fourteen—that shouldn’t be my answer. The ground beneath my bare feet burns from ice.The white horizon stretches in every direction, hypnotic, like the lies we’ve been fed. “Father…” My voice is soft, innocent.The violence is still dormant.“Why do you want me to be a killer?” The man behind the white veil is level with my gaze, though I see no eyes.Silk cascades over his face; it spills from the wide...

24 likes 20 comments 20
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Expectations and Other Marital Landmines

Submitted to Contest #331

Sensitive content: mental health issues, emotional abuse Rebecca is a woman of precision, a connoisseur of order and predictability. Until now, her life has been built around routines to soothe her relentlessly busy mind. Every minute of her day is engineered to render her impervious to the whims and pointless distractions of others. Those who know her well are both impressed and frustrated by her adherence to routine. Rebecca is in her antiseptically clean kitchen at precisely 5:10 am, having just poured her daily kale smoothie into her sta...

23 likes 9 comments 9
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THE PORTAL BENEATH THE SNOW

Submitted to Contest #331

THE PORTAL BENEATH THE SNOW The first snow in New Tokyo never falls quietly. It comes in thin electric flakes, each flake catching the neon like a dying pixel before it touches the ground. Nothing in this city is ever still. Even winter hums here — low, persistent, electric. Aira stood alone on the abandoned Skybridge, a rusting spine of glass arching above District 7. Her breath drifted in silver threads, dissolving into the blue glow rising from the streets below. Trains hissed in the distance, and somewhere far beneath her, an aut...

22 likes 3 comments 3
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Sex Worker Gets Final Rose

Submitted to Contest #331

Sex Worker Gets Final Rose“Caveat emptor.”-Ancient Roman principle (Crude, possibly offensive humor) The unexpected confluence of seemingly unrelated factors can lead to interesting results.Factor #1- Herb, soft, if not pudgy, forty-two-year-old, mild-mannered, self-checkout lane observer at Walmart; average in appearance with a nondescript personality; lonely.Factor #2- Once popular TV show dropping in the ratings.Factor #3- Creative TV writer brought in to save TV show dropping in ratings.Factor #4- TV producer desperate to salvage TV show...

20 likes 2 comments 2
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Faithless

Submitted to Contest #331

She doesn’t remember much about the moments before she was buried in the snow. She remembers how cold her nose had been, and the streaky feeling of tears on her cheeks she’d wiped away. They told her not to weep because it would freeze her skin and make her colder. She remembers when they laid her in her snow grave and put her arms across her chest, and she remembers how blue everything became when they began shoveling in the snow. One after another, the sound of slicing snow echoing in her ears like a bad song. She heard it endlessly. She r...

20 likes 2 comments 2
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Simone

Submitted to Contest #331

The only constant was the street scene, a delightful spectacle during and after the rain, as the glistening wet paving stones reflected the dreamy complexion of yellow and amber tinge of the streetlights. It looked like the sugar glaze of a deliciously sweet toffee apple. The lantern shaped streetlights that had seen more than the conversion from gas, these guardian-like sentinels of erect ironworks were the mute witnesses to live actors and dramas continuously playing out scenes of life, but never with the prepared scripts of dramaturgy. T...

20 likes 16 comments 16
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Ice and Absolution

Submitted to Contest #331

By the time Cormac Dunne found Rick Butler’s street, the desert snow was coming in sideways—fine as dust, mean as gravel. It needled the windshield, blurred porch lights into halos, and made the subdivision feel half-remembered from another life: quiet, watchful, waiting to see who came through.He eased the truck to the curb, engine ticking in its nervous cool-down. In the shell behind him rode three paintings wrapped in foam and tape—cargo he couldn’t deliver and couldn’t abandon. Some restless part of him had finally let him turn off the i...

18 likes 2 comments 2
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Winter Secret

Submitted to Contest #331

The weather outside was freezing. Snow came down in thick sheets, piling up against the road until the world beyond the window was nothing more than a white blur. She could barely see ten yards ahead. She pressed her fingertips against the cold glass. Beyond the white curtain, the quiet street lay still, buried under a blanket of untouched snow. No cars passing, no voices, no movement. Only the soft hiss of falling flakes filled the world. Nights like this once comforted her; tonight they felt like a wall closing in. She stood there, watchin...

17 likes 8 comments 8
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Pammy's Glided Cage

Submitted to Contest #331

A day in an old castle where the wind carries the conversations and secrets are found lying everywhere. I was in my room, getting ready for the day, when I heard something I shouldn’t have heard. I lay closer to the door, my soft ears straining against the rough, well-shaped wood. I caught the murmurs beneath the door, hoping it was a misunderstanding, but the following words I heard only opened one page in a closed book.“I can’t live like this anymore, Kevin,” Raftellyn declared, her Hazel eyes glistening with tears.“And who said I can? I'm...

15 likes 1 comment 1
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Before I Lose You...

Submitted to Contest #331

One winter secret might finally thaw—or shatter—the most important relationship Shayla has left. Per usual, Shayla calls and I come running…willingly every single time. The guys never miss an opportunity to mock me for being there whenever she calls but I don’t care. She needs me more than ever now and I won’t disappoint her or leave her to get through the first Christmas since Josie died alone. Basketball got cut short to hang ornaments and hopefully make her crack a smile.For as long as I can remember I’ve loved Shayla, from the first time...

14 likes 0 comments 0
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Nothing freezes faster than trust

Submitted to Contest #331

Nothing Freezes Faster Than TrustFrozen to the bone, he walks briskly from the gym toward home. The falling snow tickles his collar and crackles beneath his shoes. David looks forward to curling up with Olivia by the fireplace, a good glass of wine within reach, wrapped in her sparkling enthusiasm. The thought alone warms him straight through the cutting wind.He crosses the frozen pond and slips as he steps from the ice onto the snow-covered grass. “Fucking ice,” he mutters to himself. Just as he’s about to get up, he sees something black ly...

14 likes 2 comments 2
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