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Write a story about someone successfully — or unsuccessfully — escaping their fate.

Posted in Angst on May 5, 2023

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✍️ 107 stories

Beyond the fields

Submitted to Contest #197

I gently caressed the calluses in my right hand, lost in thought. The sun at its zenith, like a golden stain in a stark blue sky, scorched my tanned skin, while rivers of sweat ran down my body from head to toe, leaving me sticky and salty and stinky, and then I looked at the hoe standing before me, and then at the field beyond—to be weeded—until I laid eyes on my father, with his weathered but strong hands tightly gripping the wooden handle of his hoe and deliberately swinging and striking the soil below, sweat beads on his wrinkled face, c...

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My Fate

Submitted to Contest #197

Wake up. Get ready. Go to school. Get home. Do homework. Eat dinner. Go to bed. Wake up. Get ready. Go to school. Get home. Do homework. Eat dinner. Go to bed. That's my normal. My “Fate” as my little sister, Destiny would call it, or my “destiny”, either one, she uses them as intertwined meanings. And yes, she uses her own name to tell me that I don't have control of my life. She doesn't care. It's so annoying, “Destiny this” “Destiny that” of course it doesn't help that my name is Hope. Something that people directly relate to fate and des...

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The Letter

Submitted to Contest #197

      The crawling echo of the television flowed through all the rooms of the house. The vintage film was playing, blue lights flickered across the walls as Aimee stared at the desk in front of her.           She sat on the crimson plaid sofa, her leg shaking beneath her as she picked on a hang nail. She hadn’t checked the letter today for whatever reason, only that it felt off. The overcast sky that had lingered throughout the day had cast a shadowed hue to...

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Barbie and Ken

Submitted to Contest #197

Driving through the rain gives me freedom. It feels as though anything could happen. As though I can just drive off into the night never to be seen again. You donn't need to have done horrible unspeakable things to want to start over: a clean fresh slate. Sometimes the most unspeakable wrong is not one ´you've commited , but one you'´ve invited steadily: with every car you bought, every pickett fence you've buit , every steady job you've taken, all the furniture, tvs and pearls you bought to keep your wife at home , because you feel youre so...

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The Unavoidable End

Submitted to Contest #197

Rebecca had always been fascinated by the paranormal, especially ghosts. When her grandmother passed, she inherited her old house, a place she had often visited as a child. But, little did she know that her fascination with the paranormal would become her undoing. The night before Rebecca was set to move in, she decided to spend one last visit with the spirit of her grandmother. She gathered all her paranormal equipment and started an EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) session. As she recorded, she asked the usual questions that ghost hunters...

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Maev and the Path Not Taken - Version 1

Submitted to Contest #197

“Why is this taking so long?”, Erylis groaned.   Anker had known of an old informant he had used during his early days when he had first graduated from the Academy. So, they had come to Sirus, a neutral planet that sat in the middle of several star systems, hoping to get a lead on finding out more about this Maev so they could find her and switch places back.    “Nawt that much longer yur highness,” Anker whispered back. “Yew know, the longer yur in that form the more impatient yuv been getting', yur majesty.”  “I...

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Escaping Fate

Submitted to Contest #197

Kiran dreaded going to the tower. He didn’t know what to say to Fate. Had no idea how to discover the reason for her refusal. But both families, agreeing on nothing else, said he had to go. His face scrunched with reluctant thought he walked through the wide torchlit stone corridor of the Royce castle. Beneath the scent of flame and ash, a damp mildew odour clung to the thick gray stone walls that stretched high to dark cobwebbed edges. On reaching the corridor end, his thoughts were deafened by the eating and chatting of blue frocked servin...

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The Stone of Fate

Submitted to Contest #197

The Stone of Fate I've never believed in fate, or never liked it. The thought of having your life planned out for you unsettles me. Especially since my whole family is pressuring me to take over our farm. However, I want to pick my path, make my own decisions, and live my own life. Nevertheless, some things do feel like they were always meant to be….  I was sitting at the coffee shop watching the mountain out the window. I don’t like coffee, but I enjoy the calm environment there. The soft music, and the few people sitting around. S...

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Cruelty Mirrored

Submitted to Contest #197

Cruelty Mirrored Trigger Warning: Sexual and Physical Violence. They mutilated my brother soon after he was born. When he was declared a boy, my mother rolled over on her birthing bed and let the nurses take him. From there, they laid him on a table and went to work on his joints. First, his knees were dislocated, and later his hips. They then castrated him, which caused his screams to grow louder.  I cried out for him, but the nurses pushed me away. “Why? Why are you doing that to a child?” I yelled, but the nurses ignored me...

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Desert Therapy

Submitted to Contest #197

DESERT THERAPY Tunisia, 2005 In 2005, my partner and I spent two weeks in Tunisia. I’d traveled for a month in Tunisia over thirty years earlier, and felt confident we could figure out an interesting trip without guides and a planned itinerary. Mary Ann was wonderful with guide books, and I relied on “serendipity,” feeling that the best things came to us if we were open and aware; we didn’t have to plan them in advance. Combining our two methods, we were sure we’d be fine. Mary Ann had read of a desert oasis, or palmerie, in...

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What Do You Give a Man Who Has Everything?

Submitted to Contest #197

       In the history of the world, only one person ever wished to know their fate. It was such a simple command, one that seemed too easy for the consequence. But destiny was not simple. The effortless questions always led to the most precarious answers.             Fate did not always mean death. Some people were destined for more, and some for far less. Fate did not reveal how you were going to meet your end, rather if you were going to lead a l...

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A Cold Day....

Submitted to Contest #197

A Cold Day… It has started raining again. And it is bitterly cold. Looks like Delhi is heading towards a severe cold wave, with the night temperature plummeting to near zero. But why blame the weather, cold has become a part of my life. The day I first talked to Renu was also cold like today. I had gone to the India Coffee House to escape the bitter cold that had descended on the Ridge—the famous half mile in Shimla where everyone congregates in the evening—and before I finished my coffee, I saw her entering and looking around for an empty ...

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Unless, Unless

Submitted to Contest #197

I am in danger.  There is a gruesome fate, a death penalty that is awaiting me, for the crime of being a living, breathing human being with blood rushing through my veins. I can’t stop it - I know, know, that someone is after me. I have been slated for doom since the moment I was born. I am being hunted through a dark forest by a gruesome monster of myth, simply because, rushing through my veins there is blood -  blood is the subject of the intrusive thoughts that pour down like rain, hot, sticky, suffocating red rain. The obsessi...

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The Luckiest Man Alive

Submitted to Contest #197

It is 4:45 a.m., according to my watch. The plane I'm on now is scheduled to be struck by lightning at precisely 5:55 a.m., at which point it will begin a downward spiral and spin out of control. And then it'll fall into the ocean, killing everyone on board.Because of my acceptance of my predicament, I am able to keep my emotions under control.Over the last month I have had recurring dreams about this happening, so I know it is inevitable. But it is only now in less than an hour, whilst I am on this plane that I can properly recall my fatefu...

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Fate...Destiny...and Free Will

Submitted to Contest #197

Fate…Destiny…and Free Will Do WE control anything? Really? I don’t think so…  If I had chosen to stay home on Tuesday, March 17, 1998, and packed up his crap as my original mind led me, would I not be cripple? Or would the accident have happened the next day? Was it the police’s fault? Had they gone around me, would it have been him or both of us? Was it the weather? Did I do something to deserve this? Why? Will I get better? Those questions and many others plagued my memories for months… until I realized they didn’t matter now! This w...

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