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End your story in a way that leaves the reader with a sense of uncertainty or doubt.

Posted in Short Story on Oct 17, 2025

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✍️ 82 stories

Dust

Winner of Contest #325 🏆

I shot my third rabbit today.I think there’s a litter nearby, because they all look the same. White with grey spots, and they all had one solid brown ear. It was something out of a grubby Alice in Wonderland, or a Playboy bunny at the end of her shift. I saw both of those in a shop in New York, once, back when we had money to travel.My baby sister likes to think that the critters all have feelings, and that they’re living some happy lives with tea and cookies in a bow-tied little hole in the base of a tree trunk, and that they’re nibbling at...

86 likes 46 comments 46
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The Chef of Saint Dymphna

Submitted to Contest #325

(Recovered statement from the case files of Saint Dymphna Asylum, 1936)They say I am unwell.They whisper that grief has eaten my mind, that memory has spoiled and fermented in me. But they are wrong. I remember too much to be mad. The mad forget; I remember everything.The doctors think I’m crazy, but what do doctors know of appetite? Fools. They do not understand that hunger is not in the stomach – it is in the soul. Mine has been starving for years.So you understand – I had no choice.It began with the challenge: Recreate the flavor of a lon...

48 likes 15 comments 15
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Wild Wordle Woman

Submitted to Contest #325

And so, after decades of bunko and wine coolers, cruises and cosmos, country clubs and kaftans patterned with raindrops or kittens, we’d arrived together again, all tangled up and crinkly-skinned, at the age of puzzles and pickleball. We leaned harder into each other’s company, albeit remote and elastic, as all of our husbands—one another’s brothers or friends—had begun to bore us to death in their age of retired careers, brains, and dicks, like limp old rubber bands ready to shrivel, no bouncing back there. Conversations with my husband, Ji...

32 likes 28 comments 28
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Nebraska

Submitted to Contest #325

The man sitting next to you is not a gnome. He may appear to be a gnome, but he’s simply shorter than most people. There’s nothing wrong with that. You shouldn’t even be looking at him. Staring at him. You’re staring. How embarrassing. Who raised you? Just look down at the magazine you’re reading. It’s from 1812. There’s a test to find out if you’re possessed by Satan. Take the test. Find out. If you fail the test, the magazine recommends you turn yourself in to the village clergy so that you can be thrown into a well. The man next to you i...

28 likes 13 comments 13
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Cross Over

Submitted to Contest #325

Coming off the sea, the breeze is restless, but not unpleasant. Savouring its feel, I taste the salt and fear that it carries. Somewhere beneath the tide, I almost hear children laughing – or maybe it’s only the wind rehearsing old sounds. If I could, I’d roll back time like a beach mat and start over. Here, all I can do is make the most of the golden hour, and October’s latent warmth before winter claws its way back in. Apart from the odd straggler, the beach is deserted in the deepening light. I’m rarely drawn this way and hope my wait won...

20 likes 9 comments 9
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Chapel of Crows

M B

Submitted to Contest #325

The letter had said to meet at the chapel in the woods. At first he had thought to burn it and think nothing of it, but the details within had stayed his hand: Phrases known only in certain circles that caught his eye. Whoever this was knew about his old family business - the business of banditry... the life he had sworn off. Let my family hang themselves with the nooses they wove, he thought. Sooner or later the hangman would find them, or the crossbow bolts of the caravan guards. They were dead to him, and he to them. So why had this l...

18 likes 4 comments 4
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Her Remains

Submitted to Contest #325

Hey. Your phone is buzzing.“I’m asleep.”Wake up, Isla. It might be important.“No. Go away.”You should answer it.“You’re not there.”Nice try. You answered me, right? So answer the phone.“You . . . are . . . not . . . there.”C’mon. Remember that game we played on our wedding night?“What? Wait . . . what?”Here we are at the Honeymoon Arcade. Look at that, your arm’s a toy-claw and you’re going after the biggest prize . . .“Oh my . . . stop!”Find the phone, pick up the phone and answer the phone.“I know you’re not real. You’re not there.”Oh? And...

18 likes 7 comments 7
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A Waltz with Ghosts

Submitted to Contest #325

I was never one who had faith in the existence of ghosts. Even now, having borne witness to what lurks in the shadows, I find myself inexplicably torn between the truth and the makings of a madwoman. Although time, ever-present and stealing, has altered the smallest of details, what I saw that night still flits about like a flame in the wind; always dancing, but never strong enough to extinguish. It began, as most tragedies do, on a day of the most prosaic character. All those years ago, John and Maggie Hale lived in a modest manor on the ed...

16 likes 2 comments 2
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Maybe It’s Malory

Submitted to Contest #325

“Mimosa Minipas has won a Fantasy Short Story competition at the ARC Arthurian Readers Club. Her prize is a week’s stay at Cloudbank Cabin” Little Plump Jo told her five canine writing companions, the Dabrowski Dogs.“Regina Penman, the Secretary of the ARC sent me an email about it, asking me to welcome her and organize the room for her.”Little Plump Jo was the current Artisan in Residence in Malory Tennyson’s Cloudbank Cabin for Arthurian Studies. She had met Regina Penman when she attended the ARC Arthurian Readers Club Conference. Before ...

15 likes 5 comments 5
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The Graveyard Cleaner

Submitted to Contest #325

The gate creaked. It was heavy, metal, with twisting protrusions of rust jutting out between flecks of peeling paint. I clicked it shut, the mechanism groaning in protest, as if this wasn’t exactly what it was made to do. I wasn’t leaving, but closing it for the night. No one in. No one out. The night was quiet. The sky was a dusty black, a light smattering of stars like galactic freckles, winter freckles, dulled by the city’s light pollution. I wasn’t that close to the city, but close enough to see the tips of skyscrapers looming above the ...

14 likes 3 comments 3
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Mirror Mirror

Submitted to Contest #325

Peter Larkin stumbles out of the “Blue Bird Bar and Grill. He’s got a belly full of beans and hot dogs, and his head is buzzing from one too many beers. The sidewalk tilts as he tries to light a cigarette. Peter frowns as he braces himself and tries again. A smile of satisfaction spreads across his lips as his second attempt is successful. Suddenly, a harsh October wind lashes across his face as the quarter moon ducks behind a thick bank of clouds. Turning up his collar, he chuckles dryly, “Better get home before the rain catches me.” Then, ...

14 likes 4 comments 4
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Home for Christmas

Submitted to Contest #325

Home for ChristmasBy David KostikWhen strains of Bing Crosby crooning “I’ll be home for Christmas…” came through the tinny speaker of the car’s radio, tears formed in Paul’s eyes. He was determined to make it home.Years ago he’d brag he’d driven the road to Peggy’s house so many times he could drive it blindfolded. Right now, he thought, that skill would come in handy. Iced wipers slapped back and forth, almost clearing enough of the windshield to see a small patch of road while the fan pumped tepid air against the inside, opening a hole in ...

13 likes 0 comments 0
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The Missing Window

Submitted to Contest #325

CRACK.The sledgehammer bangs against the wall loudly. Drywall crumbles like fresh powdered snow all around me. It smells burnt and chemical-like, reminding me of the hospitals I would visit with my mom as a child.I wipe my brow and swing again.CRACK.The wall barely budges.I’m going to be here all night at this rate.I sigh and sit down on my couch, tossing the sledgehammer aside. It thuds against the floor and topples over. In front of me, on the coffee table, a letter lies in mockery and I stare at it. I’ve read it over a thousand times. I c...

13 likes 6 comments 6
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La Hacienda

Submitted to Contest #325

When the layoffs came, they arrived like a sickness spreading through the country. Entire departments gone overnight, entire futures rewritten in an email that began with, ‘We regret to inform you.’I was one of those who had been regrettably informed.I had built my life around that job, the title beneath my name, the proof that I’d made something of myself. That all the sacrifices my family had made by leaving Mexico were worth it.Then, in one morning, it was gone.My abuela came to stay with me when she found out, saying I needed company, th...

12 likes 5 comments 5
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The Basement

Submitted to Contest #325

A cold gust of air blew my bangs out of my face, sending a sinister shiver down my spine. There I was, face to face with the black abyss that lived underneath our house. My heart raced, breathing quickly I exhale a shaky cloud, disappearing as soon as it came. As if it were afraid of me too. The stench of decades worth of carcass filled my nose, sending a burning sensation down the back of my throat. I quickly raise the sleeve of my sweater to my face, easing the gut-retching odor. “I don’t remember it smelling this bad” I choke through...

12 likes 2 comments 2
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