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B. D. Bradshaw

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Mar, 2023

Stories (53)
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44 Followers
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53 Stories

235 karma pts

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The Horror of Fantasy

"Florencia recited the words from the book... No, that stinks..." Charlie scratched out that last line. "With bated breath, the young witch muttered the spell aloud... That's even worse!" Her notes weren't so much as an experimental first draft as they were a crude attempt at crosshatching. The entire two-page spread had been scribbled and slashed in thick black ink - a mad scrawl reflecting the artist's gathering frustration. "Gah! Why is writing so hard?" She dragged her fingers through her pixie cut, withdrawing suddenly as she remembered...

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His Final Thoughts

I hoped I would never have to hear that sound - the mass emergency alert built into every phone. Try a hundred phones all at once, in a huge, echoey airport. A state of international emergency had been declared - the literal end of the world. Yellowstone had erupted, that one event that everyone is told will spell certain doom, but we try not to think about. The initial explosion will have already scorched a sixth of North America. The plume of ash and caustic gasses will choke the rest, and then hide the sun for a hundred years, casting th...

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All You Need To Be A Hero

By the next day, it was all over the news."HERO'S EPIC DEFEAT AGAINST VILLAIN RESULTS IN LOSS OF SUPERPOWERS"Social media called it, 'The Greatest Defeat of the Century.'Either way, my life, my reputation, was ruined.It shouldn't have even been a tough fight. Mister Masquerade was another half-baked wannabe supervillain with a stupid master plan to rule the city of Overrun. Like always, I crashed his premature citywide domination party, beat up his masked goons (all dressed like they were on their way to a bird-themed ball), and then got to ...

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Life Needs More Dragons

All fire dragons hatch on the hottest day of the year. It was one of few things that everyone seemed to agree on. Regardless of where you were in the country, it was one of those well-known facts shared from mothers to daughters and sons, whether or not they've even encountered a dragon before. I was hoping to study the great hatching event for my book; I was part-way through writing all about the curious creatures of the states. It isn't a subject most would care about. The general population couldn't care less about fairies, or basilisks, ...

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A New Ending

I had lived a thousand lifetimes, and in every one, I was the villain. The wolf, the witch, the dark wizard, the dragon, the goblin king - just some of the many parts I had played across my cursed existence.If the reader knew every book they read is brought to life, would they put it down, or would they wish to live within? Well, it was some twisted wretches who concocted this set of realities, since I find myself repeating the same existence over and over. Names like 'Grimm,' 'Aesop,' and 'Anderson' come to mind - I don't know how I know. T...

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The Body in the Basement

(Content warning: themes of death/murder)Tick... tick... tick. The clock on the mantle punctured the silence, counting the seconds like a nail tapping on glass.Each click carried through Violet's chest, and her heart heard the commands, synchronising its thumping to its monotonous rhythm.Tick... tick... tick. She lay on the floor, the sick, artificial florally scent of carpet cleaner clouding her head. Her fingers pinched around another jigsaw piece, half of her thoughts focused on where it belonged in the puzzle, the other half stuck on som...

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Buried Secrets

When I was fifteen, every Saturday, I would make my way to my neighbour, Ms. Murphy's house to do a little housekeeping in exchange for pocket money. It was no trouble - she and my grandmother had been close friends, so she was practically family.Ms. Murphy lived alone, and at the grand age of ninety-nine, there were many things that she struggled with. While her late husband's estate paid for a carer five days a week, my parents helped out by providing meals, and the occasional chat over a cup of tea. With each passing week, we couldn't hel...

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Misnamed Identity

Submitted to Contest #257

(Content warning: Theme of death, mentions of gore.)I was dead, that's all I knew.I simply continued to sit quietly, stilly, waiting for something to change, for memory to return. I feel I can no longer use my eyes, and yet it is as if their range has improved. I can see either wall of the chamber - a slick, misted stone cloaked in the shadows, lit briefly in the dim glow from a crack in the ceiling overhead. And forward, there is an entrance, though the path beyond is unknown to me, fully shrouded and dimmed. The air is cold, damp, and sour...

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The Empress and the Bandit King

The roar of the crowd droned through the mighty coliseum walls, the tumultuous waves of red and gold swelling, rippling and undulating like the evening tides of the Blackknife Bay. Another warrior cut down in one sweep of the blade, his body buckling at the crook of the knee and the inner curve of the spine, backwards, spilling over the dirt. His assassin, a towering colossus of gnarled muscle stood unyielding, presenting the sword wrapped around a bulging, sinuous arm to the audience. Teeth bared in a ferocious snarl, veins throbbing, he ho...

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Cookies for my Planet!

Twenty thousand years in the future, at the core of the Milky Way, the Galactic Assembly would play host to the most epic event in the universe. The Infinity Auction - a colossal convention where aliens gathered to buy ancient artefacts, magnificent masterpieces, and plenty of planetoids. There were Umphits and Trullets, Flibbertibs and Quadzets. They arrived in their starships, their spacecrafts and saucers. They mingled in the meeting room, gossiped in the gallery, and reclined in the refectory. And then came the hour when the auction bega...

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Mercy's Quandary

Ancalen had fallen. Zaeren, captain of the guard, tore along the fortress halls, searching for stragglers. Against the thunder of crumbling stone, her armour crunched and crackled, sparkling in the rippling firelight. A cloud of rubble tore through the passageway, the ground beneath her feet quaking. She barely balanced herself on the wall and her spear, choking on the dust. The way was blocked, the only alternative being the stairs to the dungeons. That was fine, that way led to the siege tunnels - she still had an escape route. The rest of...

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Take Time to Think

'If you had the power to stop time, what would you do with it?'That was where our conversation had begun - a simple, non-confrontational thought experiment to gauge my friends' morality... Right? Well, yes and no. Mostly I was just looking for some inspiration; ideas don't always strike me unawares.Freddy said he'd rob a bank if he could. Pretty boring answer if you ask me - from experience I know it's actually easier to steal the stuff than the cash to buy it.Luke surprisingly put some genuine thought into it. He figured electronics probabl...

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Night and Day

With the graceful retreat of the sun towards the western horizon, the sky ignited with gold, reaching up to the blue to dance upon the nebula's blushed wisps - cosmic phantoms floating upon a celestial zephyr. Thistles swayed and sang, caressed by the breeze, gently grazing the fuzz of their leaves upon the lake's glassy surface. High above, a flock of starlings swam on the updrafts, twisting and arching like brushstrokes to paint upon a canvas of rose. They descended into the sanctuary of their canopy abode, chirping noisily for the moment ...

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The Reserve

"Where to, boyo?" The twenty-something woman rolled down the window of her minivan, flashing a sly grin to the kid outside her door. He stood shifting on his toes, his back near buckling under the massive weight of his pack. It was as big as he was, with extra bags strapped all over it, ready to engulf his small frame with one wrong move.With a quivering lip, he cleared his throat. "T-The Reserve... You're headed that way, right?""Oh, sure. Yeah, hop in." She unlocked the passenger side door. "You can put your stuff in 'back."The seventeen-y...

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Dreams of a Future

The Oxford Literary Archive was the life's work of none other than the distinguished Professor Nicholas Gordon Anderson, or so his fellow academics claimed. Though he may have established it, and laid the groundwork for its cultivation, it was his students that translated its donated materials to digital form. They were tasked with taking the physical works from the university depository, and copying them into the database - with the promise of unlimited coffee refills from the library café, and a commendation for their permanent records. Es...

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