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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2025
Submitted to Contest #319
(Content Warning: some mature content and graphic scenes) I want to tell you a story. My name is Seraphine. I was born, what you humans call, a vampire, the curse of my mother and grandmothers woven into my genes. Only women can carry the gene, there are few of us who remain. I’ve met others, those of us who cheat mortality but are bound to blood for eternity. What you see when you look at me is something of an illusion. Upon the twenty seventh anniversary of my birth, my body ceased aging. I have maintained my youthful appearance, as you s...
Submitted to Contest #318
Mia stood in front of the mirror adjusting the alignment of the green velvet dress. She’d selected it weeks ago after a woman at the department store had pointed out how it “really brought out the green in her eyes.” It did. It also hugged all of her curves, and not in a trashy way. She looked polished and glamorous but not too glamorous. Tonight was the night. A reviewer from a large syndicated newspaper was expected to be in attendance, as was a member of the enrollment staff from the Juilliard school. Mia had been chosen to perform...
(Authors Note: I don’t know that this is really a story. Maybe it’s an essay? Maybe I’ll try again as what I think I’ve created here is a ramble. I started with the prompt and this is what spilled out) I don’t belong here. I don’t deserve to stand shoulder to shoulder with the literary giants who’ve carved their names into the stone of history with words that dance across the page like a lover’s whisper or a warrior’s cry. They’ve built cathedrals of prose, their sentences towering spires, their stories breathing life into the mundane. Or...
Submitted to Contest #317
O1 J.C. Watts King 311 The following is my narrative concerning the events of a call assigned to me while working King Squad, 3rd Shift, Beat 11 on 11Aug2023. Per the call log, I was radio assigned a disturbance call in the 13000 block of East 46th Street North by dispatch at 2208 hours. As I recall, the disturbance was in regards to a loud booming sound and a flash of light near the Tulsa landfill. The area of 13000 East 46th Street North is rural with only a small number of residences spread throughout the area. Per dispatch, there we...
I woke as she turned her head, just as I had a million times. I was about to see her face then I was staring at my bedroom ceiling. I closed my eyes and tried to find that place, as I had over and over again, but once I was awake, it was over. She was gone. Almost never the same dream, but always the same woman, whoever she was, in a thousand different situations. It started when I was about seven years old. My father got a new job, and we moved to a different small town. The first night in our new house, I closed my eyes and saw her standin...
Submitted to Contest #316
(Content Warning: Contains some adult language) The city slept. All but one man were curled in their beds, dreaming of freedom, liberty, and better times. All but one man had accepted their comfortable, albeit boring, fate—handouts of food from the nutrition center, clothing from the uniform shop. All but one man had given up on living for mere existence and production. In the wee hours of the night, that one man walked toward the city center with purpose. John Murphy didn’t know what awaited him, but he knew where he was going, and he knew...
Submitted to Contest #315
(content warning: contains some adult language and illudes to possible sexual assault) “Reid, on the door!” As soon as I heard my name, I jumped off my bunk and stood at attention, my face less than an inch from the iron bars of my cage. “Yessir, Boss!” I’d heard those words “on the door” about a million times over the last six years, but for the first time, I was excited to hear them.“Do you have your personal items packed up, Reid?” asked Boss Johnson.“Yessir, Boss!” I answered.“I’ll be kind of sad to see you go, Reid. You’ve never given m...
The clock on the nightstand glows 2:47 AM, its red digits burning into my retinas. I’ve been staring at it for hours, or maybe it’s only been minutes. Time’s gone slippery, like trying to hold water in your fists. The room is too quiet, except for the faint hum of the air conditioner and the occasional creak of the house settling, it’s restless too. I turn onto my side and try to close my eyes. They snap open again. Sleep isn’t coming. Not tonight. Not when tomorrow looms like a guillotine.I sit up, rubbing my face, my stubble scratching aga...
Submitted to Contest #314
The clock on my nightstand blinks 2:17 a.m., its red glow bleeding into the ceiling. I can’t sleep. My phone warm in my hand, Daniel’s Insta profile open, his last post—a blurry sunset over some lake—taunting me with its indifference. He hasn’t posted in weeks, but I refresh anyway, as if a new photo might hold the answer to why he walked away. My thumb hovers over the message icon, words I’ll never send piling up in my head: Why wasn’t I enough? The apartment is too quiet, the kind of quiet that amplifies every creak, every thought. I roll ...
CW: Mentions of violence and substance abuse It was the hottest day of the year, the kind of heat that turned the city of Las Vegas into a shimmering mirage, where the asphalt bubbled and the air itself seemed thick enough to impede forward motion. Detective Marcus Kane trudged through the neon haze of Fremont Street, his shirt clinging to his back like a second skin, his badge heavy on his sweat-damp trousers. The sun was a merciless overlord, bleaching the color from the world, leaving only the stark outlines of pawn shops, casinos, and t...
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