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Write a story where a creature turns up in an unexpected way.

Posted in Short Story on Oct 25, 2024

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✍️ 88 stories

Love's Not an Alien Concept

Submitted to Contest #274

CW: SwearingHer profile stated that she loves the colour periwinkle. I had no idea that she was talking about her latex-like skin. She said that she wants held softly, deftly --- as if she were the most delicate of hydrangea petals. I didn’t know it entailed caressing her nine protruding tentacles. She mentioned that she’s originally from far from London. Who knew that she hails from outside the Milky Way, from some dwarf planet called Lila Centauri?As I observed this non-Earthling twist the flounced sleeve of her watermelon maxi dress with ...

59 likes 62 comments 62
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The Thunder Beast

Submitted to Contest #274

The afternoon had been bright and cloudless as we trudged on horseback across the featureless moorland, hauling rough-hewn pine logs in our wake. However, by the time we arrived at the raised earthworks, the sun had dipped below the rock-strewn embankment and a diaphanous mist appeared as if offering moral support. After settling our horses, a pitiless breeze caught the prairie’s desiccated buffalo grass and it trembled in the darkness. I rubbed my hands together to revitalise numb fingers and edged closer to our flickering campfire. Th...

57 likes 31 comments 31
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The Tell-Tale Clock

Submitted to Contest #274

"The pictures were hanging upside down," I said.My friend gasped and smiled, "Mary, you are a born storyteller. I actually felt goosebumps."I put my can of Pepsi down without taking a drink. "No, Cindy, I'm not making this up. I came home, and there they were. Perfectly level, but upside down.""Now stop it. You're freaking me out.""How do you think I feel? I have to live here."Just as I finished speaking, my grandfather clock struck seven and began to play "Westminster Chimes." We jumped, startled by the noisy antique."Sorry, girl, I didn't ...

55 likes 26 comments 26
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Night Creatures on the Ship Destiny's Dreams

Submitted to Contest #274

Two million years ago a turtle munched tender green morsels while she floated on a giant mass of vegetation in the Pacific ocean.She did not know that someday, in the 1800s, her story would be part of the songs and myths sung by the people of the Andes Mountains in South America, to the music that a young boy named Paulo would play on his flute.One of her descendants would help rescue a clipper ship called Destiny’s Dreams in the 1800s from a creature of the sea depths.The hard-backed turtle, drifting on her living raft, also did not kn...

38 likes 19 comments 19
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Eternal Exchange

Submitted to Contest #274

The man with many faces stood before the decrepit shrine holding a bag of human bones, a rotting corpse of a fawn, and a branch from the oldest tree.He had come to summon a demon that had been told of in legend. A child's tale to most, but to the scribes of Lytharius, they were all but fact. He had walked the 1,000 steps and through the harsh tundra only to see a grey stone door crumbling beneath the Imber Mountain. The lanterns that pushed up from the dead ground still burned and danced on the frozen soil. The man knew a demon was here...

38 likes 8 comments 8
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Milk-Fed

Submitted to Contest #274

The town of Gourd’s Hollow was gaunt and undernourished in nearly every aspect. It’s rickety streets laid out like a soothsayer’s tangle of oracle bones and its bedraggled buildings stood lean and haggard, much like the people that lived in them. The whole of it was hunched at the edge of a seacliff and mist rising from the crashing waves below hung everything above with a constant pallor. But there, right on the cusp of world’s end—where the roar of the sea filled your ears—grew the only thing in Gourd’s Hollow that could be called hale and...

37 likes 10 comments 10
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Forgotten Passenger

Submitted to Contest #274

"Nagoya," Yuki replied, her voice barely rising above the quiet hum of the train.Yokohama's neon sprawl blurred past the windows, a cascade of colors streaming over the glass to merge with her tired face staring back at her.The old man across the aisle leaned forward, his eyes buried under brows like worn leather, his skin the color of smoked tea. “Long commute."Yuki gave a non-committal shrug, her headphones already halfway over her ears.The man took no notice. "I’m going to Hamamatsu. The five temples," he said, his eyes unfocused, driftin...

34 likes 21 comments 21
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The Creature From the Undeveloped Interstate Right-of-Way

Submitted to Contest #274

Reggie for once had brought home a truly intriguing, unique gift. The Brennans nonetheless were wholly unappreciative, to Sir Reginald Fox’s bewilderment and consternation.“Sweet holy FUCK!”Reggie had never fully grasped that a gift once spurned has little chance the second or third or sixth pass. The chipmunk had sparked mild approbation; the first robin of spring amused horror. The rabbit on Good Friday morning had surely left some psychic scar tissue on the kids, and after the crow turned up Halloween, Gary was mightily afraid Reggie had ...

27 likes 19 comments 19
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Amber Eyes

Submitted to Contest #274

Amber EyesFor thousands of years cats have been teaching humans a thing or two, including how to live in the moment and when to let go.It was just after dusk when the cat tiptoed its way across the garden. Fur ruffled by a breeze blown in from the desert, it regarded the woman through languorous amber-gold eyes. Carrying a lantern, she trod the path cautiously, anxious to avoid the sting of a passing scorpion. The animal already knew she was special, but this marked her out as wise.    The woman whose name was Zara made h...

25 likes 9 comments 9
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The Eidolon

Submitted to Contest #274

The Eidolon peered through the water reeds, which appeared like protective iron spikes preventing the early mists from climbing the banks of the lake, no breeze or gentle wind aided the soft wafts of water vapour to advance to the warmer land, the majestic globe of water hung back, sulking behind the dark mask of the day. The bullrushes increased the impression of a prison boundary, although their brown heads were disintegrating and eroding with age, devoured by the march of time. In the delicate milky half-light of the approaching dawn, the...

23 likes 9 comments 9
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Day Of The Dog

Submitted to Contest #274

TW: animal deathStatistically, there are over 25,000 days in the life of an average person, yet for almost everybody, there are but a handful that stand out. Very few are specifically remembered. This is a story of one of those days.It was a sunny day in early Autumn in the rural hills of southern West Virginia. The leaves of the hardwoods were beginning to change as they did every year at this time. Already, they were starting to burst with the colorful foliage this area has always been famous for in this cool October se...

20 likes 10 comments 10
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The Beginning of the End

Submitted to Contest #274

Will-O-Wisps are cunning, deceitful, and rude little creatures. They spend the fun parts of their days leading strangers down dark paths that end in dismay. Any sane person fears coming across these strange lights, until one day they do and they no longer fright. See, Will-O-Wisps have a way of distracting the mind. With their swirling of lights and whispering words. They hypnotize creatures to no longer think. Only of thoughts that will follow the thrill. They find loads of joy in the dread of others. They are often heard laughing from the ...

18 likes 2 comments 2
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The Unwanted Unicorn

Submitted to Contest #274

“The Unwanted Unicorn” By Edward J. McCoul It all started on a perfectly ordinary Tuesday. Twelve-year-old Max was home alone, nose-deep in a video game when he heard a loud, wet sloshing sound from the backyard. That was strange. He muted his game and listened. There it was again—a sound like someone was pouring oatmeal into a bucket. He crept to the back door, cracked it open, and peeked outside. And there, in the middle of his mom’s prize rose bushes, was the last thing he ever expected to see. A unicorn. It wasn’t quite what he had imagi...

18 likes 2 comments 2
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Scoped

Submitted to Contest #274

Harry sat unmoving at his bench, staring at the petri dish containing his latest biology lab assignment. Everyone else busied themselves peering into microscopes, passing notes or asking questions.Harry only appeared to be staring. Lost in a reverie, he could have been anywhere. His parents’ argument that morning replayed over and again.Nothing new, their arguing was consistent and boring. A bad soundtrack to his life.‘But the things they said… How can people talk like that? They even hear each other?’Harry doubted it. He didn’t understand m...

18 likes 14 comments 14
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Blasphemous Visitor

Submitted to Contest #274

I used to think that home security was supposed to improve the quality of life. The new system I installed a few nights ago, though, is giving me nightmares. My sleep is not sound. I toss and turn while imagining a malignant stranger entering the house. So much evil they could do if they caught me or my wife unaware. Our children have grown and moved away. The quiet is no longer welcoming.  I own a 9mm Beretta, but I’ve only shot it once in the sanitized arena of an air-conditioned gun range. My wife can’t believe that I’d ever shoot an...

18 likes 2 comments 2
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