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Write a story that ends without answers or certainty.

Posted in Short Story on Jan 6, 2026

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✍️ 130 stories

What The Dead Remember

Submitted to Contest #335

I dig around the crevices of my comforter. My phone is in there somewhere. When I finally find it, I’m greeted by the time. 4:07. Morning. Hence my being in bed. The 4th night in a row I’ve woken exactly at this time. Had there been any other inkling that my studio apartment is haunted, I would believe in supernatural intervention in my life.Can ghosts even haunt apartment buildings?This time I was trudging through the streets of Stalingrad. By the uniforms and emblems of the men around me, I can deduce I’m Soviet. The explosions all around ...

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The Blue Seal

Submitted to Contest #335

The Blue SealThe envelope arrived on a Tuesday, slipped between the grocery flyers and the electric bill, its weight slight but deliberate. It was cream-colored, heavier than the others, with a blue seal pressed into the flap like a small gift. It had landed out of the mail slot, face down, showing off its jewel. Mira Alvarez had just finished folding the laundry when the familiar metal clank and plop of the mail hitting the floor caught her attention.She moved to the peeling Formica table in the kitchen, the one her mother repaired with red...

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Black Man Sailing Q & A

Submitted to Contest #335

Black Man Sailing: Q and A Why are you sailing? is a question I get asked with an emphasis on the you as though mostly as a question within a question. Me, particularly me and sailing combined in a question could be what anybody actually gets, but not upon first meeting usually maybe accompanied by a nodding and hearty glad you are here amongst us. I get it when those asking are white, but when those asking are black it takes on whole other dimensions. The white person usually asks why are you sailing out of a curiosity about why I am trying...

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Ladybug

Submitted to Contest #335

I'm headed to the bar for another drink when I see her. I can feel the bass reverberating in my bones and the droplets of sweat rolling across my skin as gravity pulls them down with a force nearly as irresistible as hers. At first I think it is a trick of the lights or perhaps the various substances in my blood stream tangling with the secret I've kept buried so deep for so long now. A tangle of dancing limbs blocks my line of sight for a moment, but when it clears again she is still there only this time, she is looking at me, too. Her lo...

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Clave on the Downbeat

Submitted to Contest #335

Content warning: Profanity, sexual harassment The lights came back on. Carlotta breathed easier. Anything could happen during Clave’s nightly three-minute blackout. She spent countless shifts treading the perimeter of the club’s dance floor in her four-inch heels. Her eyes acclimated to the strobes and blacklights like a prey animal. There was nothing she could do in the total darkness but freeze. Most nights, she put her body between the clientele and her drinks cart. Antonio did not approve of anybody getting away with a free drink. If she...

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The Snow

Submitted to Contest #335

I stumbled forward. My feet slipped on the snow. It was fresh, not too heavy or watery. Perfect and clean. I hated to ruin it. But I kept shuffling forward. Every step felt like a mile I had to traverse. The stark blue sky shifted dizzily in my vision. Another step. This one was shorter than the last. How long had I been walking? I didn’t know. The snow stretched out endlessly in front of me. To my left there were some trees. Yes, I would make it to the trees, I told myself. I clutched my faded canvas coat around my shoulders and turned towa...

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The Rock

Submitted to Contest #335

She learned early that answers were optional—not because she decided it or wrote some secret rule to follow, but because it was the first survival trick that worked. Someone would ask where she was from, what her childhood was like, whether she had siblings, and before the question could settle, she’d feel it: that tightening in her chest, the quiet warning that rose before thought. So she learned to pivot. “Oh, I grew up all over,” she’d say lightly, smiling like it was nothing. “What about you? Were you close with your family?” And people ...

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The Platform

Submitted to Contest #335

It was darker than it should’ve been. Probably courtesy to the mostly dead light beams along the tunnel ceiling. Or maybe it had something to do with the platform. The air felt heavier, too. Almost damp. Not with moisture, but something just as clinging. Something that took residence upon my flesh like a second skin. An almost viscous substance I couldn’t quite feel enough to wipe off. The platform, on the other hand, was just as disturbingly off. On either end, where the old, ugly and faded green tiles arched the openings for the train, ...

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The Gossamer Thread

Submitted to Contest #335

CW: Physical violence, abuse, mental health When Bill awoke that morning of mornings he knew nothing would ever be the same again. He could feel it in a part of him that lain dormant all his life. Its awakening both terrified and numbed him. He was covered in a cold sheen of sweat that made him feel unclean. Even the warming shower waters and bar of soap did nothing to address this. Worse still, he felt uncertain and lacked the confidence to face the day. Having dressed, he forced down a piece of toast. Helping it on its way with some tap wa...

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More Than a Job

Submitted to Contest #335

BradleyWhen her eyes opened, I could tell something was different. I was expecting to see fear, but that satisfying emotion was absent. Her eyes sprang open as if she knew she was in a fight and had no intention of quietly fading away. CecilleI came to myself and immediately felt pain. My throat was raw. My neck pulsed as if his hands were still squeezing. My cheek stung and I knew my eye was swollen. Without looking, I knew there were bruises around my wrists. One red hot spot on my thigh reminded me where his knee had pinned me down. Despi...

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Stuck in Limbo

Submitted to Contest #335

Trigger Warning:Contains mentions of mental health, insect infestation, and implied death. Reader discretion is advised. The linoleum squeaks in that one spot in the hall it always does. She's able to really feel the give under her foot this time, and just shrugs. It's probably the leak from the toilet then. Six months of waiting for it to be fixed. If it wasn't just direct water damage, probably from being a cockroach buffet. One crawls over her foot and under the gap in the baseboard. One of the bulbs in the dining room light clicks on. T...

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The nature of love

Submitted to Contest #335

What would you do if there were only 20 minutes until the end of the world ? Too little time to cook a pot roast or run a laundry cycle, but sufficient to ask forgiveness, make amends, get some answers. Then again, some might use it to watch porn. Or to chug back a bottle of single malt, in search of their own bespoke oblivion. Look, it’s up to them I guess. It’s their 20 minutes.As for me, I know my answer. I know because it is here, right in front of me. The world isn’t ending, but I am. And in the 20 minutes I have left, I have chosen to ...

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Masters of the Universe

Submitted to Contest #335

“This is BS,” Tim insisted.Andrea looked up at him, shielding her eyes from the sun with her right hand. She rested her magazine in her lap, her bare legs outstretched on the chaise longue. She adjusted her bikini top; the string was digging into the delicate space between her neck and shoulder. “What’s going on?” she asked.He shook his head and pursed his lips into a thin line. His hands were in fists resting on his hips. “You know, the prime minister and all his security. It’s messing with my vacation vibes.”Yesterday, Holly, the director ...

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WING【翼】

Submitted to Contest #335

TW: THIS STORY CONTAINS CURSING AND CONSENSUAL SEXUAL THEMES/REFERENCES •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• I run my hands through your hair again. It is so soft that it drives an ache through my heart. I wish my ribs were softer so when my heart thumps against them, they would not hurt so. At least then I would be able to do without that physical pang, pang, panging against my most longed for desire: that I overcome this love for you it causes me a persistent sighing that is near as troublesome as an obstinate coughingwhose root cause is a ...

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Welcome to Texas

Submitted to Contest #335

Now, in Russia, they got it mapped out so that everyone pulls for everyone else... that's the theory, anyway. But what I know about is Texas, and down here... you're on your own.- from Joel and Ethan Coen’sBlood Simple People go just where they will. I never noticed them, until I got this feelingthat it’s later than it seems.- Jackson Browne There is no later. This is later. - Cormac McCarthy, The Road 1We danced close on the wooden porch, holding each other so tightly, trying to make love again through our clothes. My music came through th...

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