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Write a story about a misunderstood monster.

Posted in Short Story on Sep 5, 2025

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✍️ 90 stories

Screaming Like a Little Girl

Submitted to Contest #319

The monster's hot, steamy breath smelled like decayed skunk. My stomach churned, and I almost lost my breakfast, but that would be disastrous, so I covered my mouth and forced it down. My chameleon suit can keep me from being seen, but it can't hide puke. The giant tiger-like creature sharpened its claws on the other side of the massive tree I had chosen to hide behind. Even as a kid, I was never any good at finding hiding places, and I was usually the first one found. Actually, I'm not good at doing anything on this alien planet. I should h...

48 likes 31 comments 31
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Frankie's Very Bad Week

Submitted to Contest #319

Day One – MondayDear Diary,Today, I was certain the villagers would finally see me as good neighbor, not "terrifying monster who lurks in shadows." Small deed. Easy. Harmless.Kitten in tree—classic hero situation. I reached up, plucked it down gently. Smiled. Practiced smile, too. Not too many teeth. Just enough to say, Hello, I am friendly, please offer pie.Then Mrs. Kettleworth saw me. She screamed, "HE'S EATING THE CAT!" Villagers came running with pitchforks.I tried to explain: "No eat cat. Just hold cat." But apparently my voice sounds ...

34 likes 31 comments 31
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Goodnight, Eugene

Shortlisted for Contest #319 ⭐️

Living under a bed was entirely too cramped, Eugene thought to himself. He often bumped his head, and it was impossible to keep the dust out of his fur. Sometimes he daydreamed of roomier assignments — an attic, perhaps, or a basement — but like all monsters fresh out of monster school, Eugene was given the customary post beneath a child’s bed.Yes, Eugene was a monster — one of the very ones you’ve heard of, or perhaps encountered hiding beneath your own. It is true that under every child’s bed lives a monster. It is untrue, however, that th...

34 likes 18 comments 18
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The Girl Who Fed the Moth King

Submitted to Contest #319

Luna had never dreamed. In a village where dreams are sacred, visions were gifted by the spirits in the jungle. This made her something less than human—or something worse. The elders called her “Touched” where moths marked her in the womb. Children kept their distance at night. Dreams weren’t just stories that came while you slept. They were messages from the jungle spirits–signs of favor, or sometimes warnings you couldn’t ignore. During the Moth Festival season, children were warned not to go after dark. He waits in the jungle, still as ...

26 likes 23 comments 23
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The Shape of Her Shadow

Submitted to Contest #319

The first time her mother locked her in the bathroom, Tara was nine.It wasn’t for long. “Just a few minutes,” her mother said afterward, voice tight, her hands trembling as though she were the one who had been trapped. But those minutes stretched deep inside Tara’s chest. She had sat on the cold tile, staring at the towel rack and breathing in the stink of bleach, her ears straining for her mother’s footsteps.Later, when the door opened, her mother’s arms had wrapped her close. She smelled of cigarettes and lavender lotion, her chest warm ag...

21 likes 13 comments 13
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Miles Between

Submitted to Contest #319

Ms. Carter found the first drawing while clearing out desks at the end of the day. Just a loose sheet, ends bent and folded, streaks of gray dragged across one side by restless hands.At first glance, it was a house. Four windows, but no door. Also the windows weren’t empty squares. They’d been filled, every inch, with black strokes so dense the paper had nearly torn.The next sheet showed a family at a table. Plates neat, forks lined straight. Every face, though, had been scratched out, marker lines pressed down hard enough to split the page....

20 likes 11 comments 11
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A monster, misunderstood.

Submitted to Contest #319

The Misunderstood Monster"The capacity for destruction among the human race is teetering on admirable," said Bigfoot. A name they find particularly offensive, as among these magnificent creatures they are so much more than a foot, large or otherwise.The words hung in the mountain air like smoke from a dying fire, acrid and impossible to ignore. Jarrod Manning felt his throat constrict—thirty-five years of searching, and this was what he'd found. Not vindication, but indictment.Beside him, Jamelia shifted on the rough-hewn log that served as ...

19 likes 10 comments 10
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I Cried to Dream Again

Submitted to Contest #319

Caliban is not so readily evoked because of his low, feral nature, or to his pretensions as a would-be rapist. Characters such as these are common enough, a major motif without whom literature would barely exist. A part of the fabric, without which the tartan would have no plaid.No. Caliban is brought to mind so readily because he was ugly, and it is this singular deviation from physical form that so ensures his longevity.But was he a monster? Because if Caliban was a monster, then I, by definition, am the greatest monster of them all. If al...

19 likes 20 comments 20
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#MonstersOnline

Submitted to Contest #319

Date: September 23 at 11:42pmThread: Introduction Night I didn’t respond to the first post on time, so forgive me for my lateness. Truthfully, I convinced myself that online groups aren’t my thing. A very old friend of mine said it would be wiser to stay quiet about who I am. What I am. And to be painfully honest, I usually don’t spend this much time on the internet. But allow me to begin this introduction with a little about me. I’m male. European-born. I’ve lived in the same neighbourhood for over three centuries (though never in the same...

18 likes 6 comments 6
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Tooth Decay Jack

Submitted to Contest #319

Tooth Decay JackIn loving memory of a mum who wrote poems that turned monsters into teachers. On the night before the dentist, Ellie dreamed of castles. Not the grey stone and moat sort. This was a bright white city, with towers shaped like molars and bridges as shiny as new spoons. She floated over it the way an eagle rides the wind. Wherever she drifted, the streets below hummed a tiny tink, tink, tink, like someone mending a watch.“Hello?” Ellie called, because even in dreams she was politeThe tink, tink, tink stopped. Out from behind a p...

18 likes 15 comments 15
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The Monsters They Make

Submitted to Contest #319

They tightened my bonds before tossing me overboard. My body hit the water with a loud crack, and I gasped in one last breath before the ocean closed over me. Salt stung my eyes, but I refused to close them. I could still make out the shape of the ship above me, sailors leaning over the railing to watch as I sank deeper and deeper. Salt stung the fresh lashes on my back, but the pain on my skin was nothing compared to the burning in my lungs. I kicked and twisted, fighting with every ounce of strength to free myself from the ropes. It was ...

18 likes 4 comments 4
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Call of the Banshee

Submitted to Contest #319

They always hear me before they see me. It’s by design, the way I was created, if I was created. Not sure if I was born or just materialized from silt and forgotten wreckage at the bottom of the lake. No mother, father. My earliest memories are the knifelike scraping in my throat and the concurrent shriek that is my oldest performance and my most primal state of being. The icy water in and all around me. The dark. The sweet and pungent smell of dead things. The flat void of nothingness inside me. This time, I’m summoned quickly. It’s a man. ...

16 likes 1 comment 1
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Of Gods and Monsters

Submitted to Contest #319

I am a monster, but I wasn’t born this way. I know the very thought of me fills you with horror and disgust. But spare me a moment and I will tell you my story.Do you know what it’s like to live with snakes on your head instead of hair? No, I don’t suppose you do. I don’t think anyone does.There they go again, squirming and hissing on my pillow. I feel their cold breath on my neck and their tongues flicking against my skin. I don’t dare turn over on my back for fear of crushing them. Every time I try to fall asleep, they crawl across my skin...

16 likes 10 comments 10
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Death's Child

Submitted to Contest #319

The first child that Death came to claim was unlike any other. She was born in a time before children were taught to fear Death and she stared up at him when he came, silent and curious and watchful. She cooed at him as he reached out a long, thin-fingered hand to gently smooth unkempt chestnut hair out of her eyes, and he pulled his hand back. It was sad, to take a child this young.He learned a long time ago, though, that when the call came, he could not ignore it. There was a time, when Life and Death were still young in this world, when h...

15 likes 1 comment 1
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The Photo Without Context

Submitted to Contest #319

After two hours of lying on his back in bed, Dad began to fuse with his mattress. It was 117 degrees. He was drenched in sweat that had formed an outline of his body on his fitted sheet. I used a stick I retrieved from the backyard to poke his hairy belly that peaked from his shirt. Nothing happened. His eyes were closed and he wasn’t moving. Just another fat guy lost to this heckish summer heat, I thought. He was never a likable man, but even I knew he shouldn’t have died so young. I kneeled on the side of his bed and say a prayer. Mors vi...

15 likes 11 comments 11
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