Carla Marquez - Writer on Reedsy Prompts

3 Stories

88 karma pts

The First Keeper

Submitted to Contest #319

Mother died that winter. She had given us every last morsel from her own mouth, though there was little to give. Her body grew thin and brittle as frost, and one morning she did not wake. Father had not returned from the war. He had promised he would be home before the first snowfall, but as the snow buried our town in white, we knew the battles with the Shadow Beings still raged far away.Tristan and I stayed, waiting for him, even as the other villagers fled toward warmer and safer places.I rationed what little remained, but I was a child w...

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The Secret I Feed

Carla Marquez

Submitted to Contest #316

At first, Gavin was uncomfortable with the attention he was receiving. He’d run from the cameras, hide from the growing crowd of fans waiting outside, and refused all requests for interviews.Now he thrived under the spotlight.He stopped for photos, signed autographs, and spoke at schools. Encouraging the young minds, consoling the desolate and grieving, and winning his way into the hearts of everyone who saw him solve another case that no one else could.He was a new type of celebrity. A new type of Hero.One that was sorely needed in modern t...

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Every Dream is a Theft

Carla Marquez

Submitted to Contest #314

Three months after the funeral, I started dreaming of him. He was there, in the living room, wearing his sunglasses inside, his favorite ones with the blue-green chrome lenses that matched his neon sneakers, and a band tee that was just one size too small, though he would argue it was the perfect size or it shrank in the dryer. “Take me down to the paradise city…” He was singing and dancing like he would when I was a kid: his feet moving to one rhythm while his arms danced to another. My chest ached with something between joy and sorrow. For...

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Author bio

Carla is a Seattle-based writer with a BA in French from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She has been writing short stories since her elementary school days. Her writing is deeply influenced by the atmospheric tales of Edgar Allan Poe, the unsettling horror of Shirley Jackson, and the gothic depths of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Her childhood attachment to the eerie mysteries of Goosebumps and Fear Street still finds its way into her works, creeping into her stories, blending with her evolving exploration of memory, selfhood, and the complexities of human emotion.

Currently, Carla is working on an anthology over on Substack titled "The Secrets We Feed," and a novel-length work that explores lighter themes, emphasizing romance, adventure, and fantasy. You can read the first draft of her serialized webnovel, Binding Fate, available on Tapas, Wattpad, Webnovel, and Inkitt.