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B. D. Bradshaw

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Mar, 2023

Stories (59)
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59 Stories

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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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Faetouched

Wight Manor in Glen ne Geas had been home to the clan of Cailein since the first age. Its cliff-top location, secret passages, battlements, barbican and towers had kept it safe from a thousand sieges, but for Aileas, it was little more than a playground. Though she had no siblings, she played with the children of the clan's guard, relishing the long daylight hours by frolicking about the manor in efforts to avoid her father's watchful eye. If the leader of the clan would catch Aileas in the midst of any strenuous activity, he'd send her sulk...

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The Wind in the Willows

Submitted to Contest #248

'The Wind in the Willows.' I never actually read the book but I remember the puppet series from when I was a kid. It used to terrify me - something about the stop motion was too uncanny for my eight-year-old brain. There were only a couple of episodes that followed the plot of the book, the rest I assumed were original stories written with the same characters, or parts of the book padded out for runtime.Although that one show scared the heck out of me as a kid, I remember the main story and the characters themselves fondly. What was it reall...

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Smoulder

Haven was a realm divided in two. There was Verdant - a flourishing land of green, home to humans, creatures and flora, all unique though each tailored to the same fundamental design. And then there was Smoulder, a primordial ecosystem of chaos. To the inhabitants of Verdant, its fundamentals of function were unknown - incomprehensible, intangible, untameable. The plants and animals knew to stay away on instinct, but man's curiosity meant that laws had to be enforced to discourage traversal and exploration.The divide between the lands was a ...

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Escape Room 4

The escape room was Jackie's idea. 'You love puzzles, don't you Grace? Let's do an escape room for your birthday!' I mean, Sudoku and crosswords were more the types of puzzles I was actually into, but sure, why wouldn't I want to try it? From what I've seen about escape rooms, they're just warehouses split up like office cubicles with drama school students fake crying about fake apocalypses or zombie virus outbreaks. What I really wanted for my twenty-first birthday was a night on the town, not a day of playing pretend in some disused parkin...

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The Tides Above - The Eirai Myth Behind Meteor Showers

Submitted to Contest #245

In the days of oblivion, the Tides Above over the realm of mortals were rich and plentiful. It was a vast ocean - not of water, but of aetherium - the cosmic lifeblood from which all existence began. And within the depths of this ethereal sea swam great schools of fish - shoals that would undertake grand journeys across the tides that would last centuries. And such majestic creatures glimmered like the starlight as they caught the gemstones that drifted in the swell, and carried them to the western and eastern shores - their crossing a testa...

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The Album

I'd been going through Granny's old things. Clearing her house had taken three months, that's something you don't really think about when someone says the word 'hoarder.' I used to love visiting, it was like a dragon's lair, piled floor to ceiling with treasures from across the ages. Any time I went around, I'd ask about something from decades ago."Granny, do you still have that blue tea set with the owls?"And she'd say - "Second bedroom on the right, north-west corner, in the red box on top of the breadmaker."And like magic, it would be the...

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That Day We Saved The Universe With Coffee

Lottie stirred from an uneasy sleep, her head heavy and numb. The lights around the floor of her cabin illuminated in response to her movement, as she shifted her legs off the bunk, and perched herself on the edge, curled over her knees. She rubbed at her eyes, stretching with a yawn. The computer's automated broadcast only mocked her discomfort."GOOD MORNING, OFFICER MCMAHON!""What's so good about it, DATA?" She sneered."ALL SYSTEMS ARE OPERATIONAL. SCANS SHOW THE PALADIN'S ROUTE IS CLEAR, AND YOUR LIFESCAN RESULTS DEMONSTRATE A SIGNIFICANT...

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A lovely day for hunting

Back up on the hill, the wind picked up again. It scrambled my fur - the specks of grit and dust whipped up in it scratching at the skin left unarmoured. Another settlement conquered, another thousand humans executed.It was my fourth clearance of the week. They were few and far between for a time - as they spread out for safety, but with the seasons changing and their fuel running out I guess they decided to move closer together so they could share resources. Even at the end of their civilization, they refused to go without the modern conven...

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Countdown to Contact

"Can anyone else hear that?" I asked, as we sat at the table for dinner. The rest of my family - my sister, mum, and dad shrugged, apparently ignorant. It sounded like a heavy droning, perhaps a huge plane flying miles away, on its way overhead.I stood, put on my shoes and opened the patio door, stepping out into the chill winter night. They followed, curious to see what I had heard. Staring up towards the sky, the sound grew closer and louder. On my right - a blinding orb of light and fire shot across the sky, sparking off shocks of electri...

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