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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write a story about someone who keeps being cast as the hero but is actually a villain (literally or metaphorically).

Posted in Adults on Oct 31, 2022

Submissions are closed

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✍️ 21 stories

“Night Shift” by Andi Hyland

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #147

I watched Edna Powell die last night.  I sat at her bedside and held her thin hand as her breathing slowed.  I watched as her eyes became fixed and glazed, and her skin became pale and waxy.  I leant forward and put my ear to her lips as the remnants of her final breath whispered.  The death rattle signified the end.   I let go of her cool hand and put my stethoscope against her chest to listen for a heartbeat that I knew was not there.  A life had been lived.  I stood u...

46 comments 46
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“Wine is Fine but Liquor is Quicker” by Sharon Hancock

Submitted to Contest #147

WARNING: alcohol abuse    James was barely out of diapers when he tried a sip of his mother’s wine. He spat it out and wiped his tongue with a napkin. The bitterness lingered in his mouth, keeping James alcohol-free for years.     As a teenager, when his friends partied with drugs and booze, James declined to participate. While most kids his age spent their weekends getting wasted, James studied and worked. As a result of his efforts, he graduated Valedictorian of his high school and college classes. After...

15 comments 15
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“Stillbirth of a Nation” by Graham Kinross

Submitted to Contest #147

My hand reaches over the back of his seat. Chloroform sends his mind spinning before he can make a sound. When he’s unconscious I touch the bare skin of his neck and get to work.             On a screen plays the 1915 silent film The Birth of a Nation. Hint, it was first called The Clansman. My patient and his friends have a private screening. No one else would watch this shit, hopefully. That’s a lie, there are too many people who still idolise the lynch mobs too cowardly to show t...

17 comments 17
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“The Perfect Man” by Sydney Richelle

Submitted to Contest #147

The Perfect Man By Sydney Richelle Dr. Carson White was the perfect man. He lived in a perfect house with the perfect family and had the perfect job. He was a paediatrician who worked long hours to afford his habits of getting his shoes shined every morning and taking his family on extravagant vacations to Rome, to Africa, to Dubai. He had met Marie in Italy during a family trip. She was a nurse who just so happened to be transferring to his hospital back in America. She was sassy and stubborn and had scars on her arms from ol...

2 comments 2
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“A Hero's Life” by Greg Gillis

Submitted to Contest #147

           They were three weeks into filming the latest and greatest action movie, and the Director, Arthur Coolidge yells repeatedly into the darkened set for one of his actors who was late once again for his scene.            Beth, the 1st Assistant Director scrambles through the darkness asking everyone on-set if they had seen Walter anywhere. She knows that if she doesn’t get him onto the set soon, the axe will fall on her, not ...

0 comments 0
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“Remembrance ” by Cindy Strube

Submitted to Contest #147

Remembrance=DRAFT=NOTE: DELETE COMMENTARY BEFORE SENDING!!My dear family and friends, I have been tasked with asked to write an obituary and eulogy for Aunt Opaline.(None of you want to tackle trying to figure out how to say something nice about her, and you pretend that you chose me because I have “a way with words”. Speaking of words, the word “eulogy” comes from the Greek “eulogia”. It means “praise”.This is going to be difficult.)I will share with you what I’ve written, and you feel free to let me know if there are any inaccura...

10 comments 10
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“ghost” by L N.

Submitted to Contest #147

She is meant to kill the ghost.Her hair is already curled and her lipstick already crisp, because cinema is art and god forbid her paintbrush strays. The click of heels on the set floor matches the cadence of her even heartbeat, and her faint smile is clandestine in the shadows.Across the floor she senses the ghost move into his own position. The carefully ambient lighting colours him in warm, ephemeral shades, and his soft smile makes her fingers twitch.“I’ve never understood it,” the ghost once told her when they were sitting alone at the ...

5 comments 5
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“The roles we play ” by Heather Peace

Submitted to Contest #147

This girl, she always praised him made him look as best she could. It was me—I’m this girl. It sounds clichè; in the most ridiculous way. I look back over social media now, you wouldn’t know a thing except how wonderful he was. I did too good at covering it up on social media; kind of like covering up bruises in real life.  Three years have passed now since I left. Domestic violence is traumatic they tell us. What they don’t tell us is the abuse that happens after you leave as he desperately tries to keep control over you, as he moves o...

3 comments 3
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“The Tale of the Sun and Moon” by Beluchi Akabogu

Submitted to Contest #147

Sunny, you are my sun.That sounds funny, but it's true. You have this crazy laugh which involves so much snorting and jumping and getting pink in the face that when you laugh, it's hard not to laugh with you. Most of the time we've spent laughing has been you shrieking at something so random it's not even funny, and me chortling along with you because your laughter makes it seem a hundred times funnier. I've always loved that about you.I love that you're so great at telling stories. You could literally be talking about something as simple as...

6 comments 6
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“Character Flaw” by Darlene Chaney

Submitted to Contest #147

(Content warnings: Swearing/Mental health issues) It was dark by the time she had regained consciousness. She pried her forehead from the steering wheel and wiped the coagulated substance off with the back of her hand. She cried out in agony as muscles spasmed in her neck. The only source of light was the faint glow from the full moon hovering over the car. She had no recollection of where she was, where she had been, where she was going, or even who she was. All she could tell was that she’d somehow collided with a tree and the old...

2 comments 2
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“You are not a hero” by Callum McGee

Submitted to Contest #147

You are not a hero Your scowls conceal tears, your jaw carrying the world's weight swinging clenched fists in societal pools. Your chest is a nitrogen prison, encasing a frozen heart, dreading warm spots. You are not a hero, so why are you cast as one? Your eyes are medieval spears impaling breast bones, slicked-back hair, and endomorph body a partner deterrent. Heroes are golden boys clad in blue tights, flaunting bat suits. Do you look like one? Swinging around skyscrapers, saving screaming civilians, mouths watering at sunlight gliste...

2 comments 2
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“Blackstar” by Justina Clark

Submitted to Contest #147

Elijah Mazursky, A reconnaissance Infantryman he was, dismounted in Iraq and Afghanistan. A C-130 crash on the airfield is what started the man's descent into madness.  "Take down the fans," Elijah said to his mother, "Take down all the fucking fans, they're making too much noise!" He moved quickly, dismantling all of the ceiling fans around the home he shared with his mother and little brother. The sounds of the fan had already set off into Elijah's nervous system, It was fight or flight now. He stepped outside onto the balcony, pull...

4 comments 4
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“Tellus Bart gets the Part” by Chesley Richards

Submitted to Contest #147

"Tellus, my dear, you are such a hero with the Director. You were so gracious in your audition, offering to step aside for your two proteges. It was a hard choice for the Director, you know. And casting younger actors in the lead really designed for you is such a risk for her, but she has a strong creative vision for what this picture can be. She just wanted me to let you know that she appreciates your understanding about the part and hopes you have no hard feelings,” Mitzi parroted the agreed-upon language in talking with Tellus Bart, tryin...

0 comments 0
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“Chancy's Charmer” by Brenda Butler

Submitted to Contest #147

   Chancy had gotten a little desperate to say the least. She had grown tired of going to work and going home and going to church and nothing else. She knew it was her fault and admit she brought it on herself. After her divorce three years ago, she had become a recluse. Jason, her ex had taken her through so much heartache and pain. It took her some T and T to get over it and him. T and T stood for time and therapy, and as far as Chancy was concern it took almost as much time as her marriage lasted. She and Jason were married...

1 comment 1
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“Captain Cosmic” by Michael Jefferson

Submitted to Contest #147

“Excited?” Marisa asks.            “Are you kidding? Conor Overton! I get to interview the man who played Captain Cosmos in the “Astral Traveler” series, was Raz Vadish in “The Pirates of Port Royal,” and played George Victory, the rootin’ tootin’ shootinist cowboy west of the Pecos!”            “What was his famous line as Captain Cosmos?”            “’ As long as I have a heart...

2 comments 2
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Contest #147

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Title: Just Ask for Mercy

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