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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write about someone trying to atone for a mistake they’ll never be able to fix.

Posted in Angst on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 192 stories

“The core of destruction” by Manu Jankus

Submitted to Contest #70

A sinister and corrupt desire kept pestering me, devouring my reason and determination as I gallivanted through the dark corridors of her inadequately illuminated dwelling, which contributed to the ambiance of utmost and perpetual gloom. Floriana, my fiancée, was absent from her residence for the previous ten days. I kept sulking about her home as she instructed me to see I ensure everything was in order until she returns. After her departure, I spent an hour parading in all my might around the residence, enjoying my fleeting freedom. Monoto...

2 comments 2
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“Dying Wish” by Vanessa Kilmer

Submitted to Contest #70

I lay dying in bed in the nursing home. I hate this place. I don’t want to be here. I won’t stay long. Everyone knows this. I made my wishes known my whole life. I’m here because I fell at home when getting up during the night to pee. I missed the toilet and went over backward into the tub. My husband tried to lift me out, but he’s old, too, (three years more than my eighty), so he called the emergency squad, and even though I said no, they brought me to the hospital and then moved me here for therapy to get me back on my feet. But that is...

4 comments 4
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“Confession of Zack Modine” by George Georgerfrost@gmail.com

Submitted to Contest #70

Once upon a time Zack Modine was a hometown hero, but then six years ago, in a fateful flash, all his lofty accolades and good graces vanished, never to return. He still lives in Tyler Gap, a small community located in the open desolate parts of West Texas, a mere stone throw from the New Mexico border. Tucked into the rolling hills and buttes, Tyler Gap was once an insignificant forgotten Union Pacific whistle stop on a transcontinental run along the Mexican border that is no longer in service. The railroad tracks are still presen...

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“Cheater ” by Alex Stephens

Submitted to Contest #70

Audio Logs - Dr. Victor Pluton Log date: 31/12/2052 They're back… my daughters are back. We are celebrating the New Year again. It is delightful… I have missed them very much. We are laughing, retelling old stories, and above all else, making new memories. Every time they return to me, it reminds me of the old times…the good times. I hope that this may last forever.  Persephone, my sweetest, is as loving as ever. She brings with her such an aura of peace and wellbeing that it… well, it makes me proud of my own hard work! Sh...

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“Melody” by Blane Britt

Submitted to Contest #70

I was 14 years old when the first time I seen and fell madly in love with Adeline Fairchild. Even before the most attractive and most popular girl in our freshmen year of high school didn’t know I even existed. I knew right then and there that one day she would eventually be my wife. It wasn’t until our junior year that she began to notice me. I had grown from 5’5 to 6’3 over the course of one summer and I was the starting quarterback of our Division I high school City Championship that season. She was a cheerleader destined to be titled Mi...

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“I wonder” by Addie Wilson

Submitted to Contest #70

I am in his arms, yet I have never felt more distant. I listen to his words, yet they have no meaning. I laugh at his jokes, yet it is no longer carefree. I feel his presence, yet I have never felt more lonely. I smile around him, yet I weep when I am alone. I hear him say I love you, yet his words never seemed so empty. It has not always felt this way. Our love was once young and true. Our love felt like the first date in the bed of his old Chevy with the sun setting and a field of golden wheat. I remember it so clearly. How I felt chi...

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“Unwanted guest” by Esther Mkilania

Submitted to Contest #70

"What was that sound?" I listened for a moment longer, and it came a-knocking again. The clock on the nightstand read 12:46 am. Maybe they had the wrong door, I thought to myself. The knocking came back, this time with a voice. "Alice? Are you in there?" My heart leaped. How did they know my name? Quietly, I slunk out of bed and crept to the door.  The knocking came again, so suddenly that I recoiled from the sound. "Alice, I know you're there. Open the door, please."  Looking through the peephole, I saw a woman who looked strang...

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“If Only” by Dede Dee

Submitted to Contest #70

   I understand that we as human beings are not perfect and we make mistakes but the error I had made was a costly one, one I wish I could go back in time and change, one that has haunted me since that fateful Wednesday and since then I had promised to do everything to try to atone for my sins even if it drove me to the brink of insanity, it was a cross that I had to bear. I had been trying to make it up to Aisha and Megan her daughter since I had gotten Darryl her husband and my best friend killed she had forbidden me from at...

6 comments 6
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“Her ” by Emily Kangal

Submitted to Contest #70

            The sting of the morning sun was insufferable, so I rolled over to the opposite side of mattress, which proved to be the wrong choice.              A chunky, wet puddle of an undetermined substance pooled into the middle of my bed.              “What the hell?” I jumped, disgusted and irritated. I didn’t know if this was my doing, or someone e...

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“Somewhere in Dreams” by Jeffrey Ashkin

Submitted to Contest #70

      Rebecca smiled at me. It was a sunny day at the café I used to visit in my childhood. They had just served my favorite dish: half a cheese pizza, a whole Maine lobster and a side of chocolate glazed donuts.         "You know what's weird?" Rebecca asked me.        "What?" I replied.         "Every time I turn on the microwave, my phone bill goes up twenty dollars," she said.    ...

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“Reverberations of Rage” by Ashley Fortier

Submitted to Contest #70

Trigger Warning: Domestic ViolenceAlan decides it's time to face the man in the mirror.“9-1-1, What’s your emergency?”“I need you to come to 804 Buckhorn Lane, there’s been a terrible accident.”The phone line clicks.-“Mark my words, Martha. One of these days you’ll wind up dead!” Alan spat, fist shaking an inch from her face. The crimson in his cheeks indicated the temperature and toxicity at which his blood boiled. Martha pressed herself further into the counter, unsure who was acting more like a caged animal in this doomed marriage. He had...

5 comments 5
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“Facing Eva” by Adam Wan

Submitted to Contest #70

“Am I going too fast, Keiko?” Haruto asked, slowing down on the seesaw— but of course, no reply. Averting his gaze to the floor, he simply smiled to himself, smiling inward— as if expressing to himself a thought, a feeling; or at the very least trying to, as if trying to convince himself of one, something true. He held his breath, feeling the evening wind blow, warming his skin and playing with his hair. He wanted to let out a sigh, but decided to keep it in; something was in his throat. It’s cold… The sun was setting by then, the horizon co...

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“Obliterating the status quo” by Seeker C

Submitted to Contest #70

I was convinced that I could make amends for what I had done. I spent all my days and nights fixated on how to correct this. When I was five years old I remember being seated in the passenger seat of the car with my father on the long drive through the mountains. Meandering routes climbing uphill into the dark green hills. The mist came down early one afternoon and it was as if we were surrounded by white clouds. I could not see the way forward but my father kept going through the mist. He looked straight ahead with such focus I had never se...

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“What's Done is Done” by Chet McHenry

Submitted to Contest #70

It’s a terrible thing to kill someone.  No matter the reason behind the act there is no way to escape one simple fact:  knowingly with premeditation or by accident you ended someone’s life and that someone’s death at your hand is irreversible. Once done there is no atonement or undoing-period. Jennifer looked down at Tony’s lifeless body oozing blood from the knife wound in his chest. How did things go so wrong?  I, I didn’t mean to …All she had been doing was chopping up a potato for tonight’s mashed ...

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“Betrayed” by Alejandra Flores-Jimenez

Submitted to Contest #70

Maria lay, curled up on her bed in a little cocoon of blankets, headphones perched upon her ears. The only light source in the room was the lit screen of her phone as it displayed her music choice: only songs about heartbreak. The blue light illuminated her soft features and reflected her grey skin. Her lip quivered as she held herself close, black streaks of mascara smudged on her round cheeks as she sniffled and smudged it some more with the back of her hand. What had Charlotte been thinking, then? Had Maria done something wrong? Something...

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