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Dylan Patrick

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Dec, 2022

Stories (15)

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15 Followers

23 Following

15 Stories

304 karma pts

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Zodiac Brothers

Submitted to Contest #202

CW: swearing, brief mention of Nazism I personally think Zodiacs are BS, and whoever uses them, like the stars they read, are full of hot air. With that said, however… I do believe in fate, that the story of how our lives unfold is written in the cosmos somewhere, and while we can do as much as we like to set our own course, who we are causes us to eventually find who we were meant to find. Most people might prefer to weaponize this power to set themselves up with a Park Jimin or an Eva Longoria, but I in all my powerlessness found a br...

6 likes

The Kid of Yestermonth

Submitted to Contest #198

Warning: the occasional upper-echelon swear word, slight homoerotic vibes (comes with the territory of wrestling) Allow me to summarize the past few weeks: “Welcome to Overtime Gym!” “Don’t you quit now!” “I’m trying!” “I have no son!” Okay, I’m exaggerating with that last one, but only slightly. Being part of a family that accepts nothing but greatness can get tiring. Not only greatness, but a 70s Celtics-esque run where we bring back multiple championships. Looking at our trophy room, you’d think that I was the only one who didn’t g...

9 likes

Burnjaw

Submitted to Contest #197

Varjan saw a journey of ten thousand days in the face of a flickering fire. The volcanic eruption that birthed him, the sea of blood he had left in his wake as a youth, the glory he had earned as a soldier for the unification of dragons and humans, the strange but fulfilling love he had shared with the human princess of Dragon’s Landing, the inherited rivalry which had doomed one of them to death since their birth. Even as they became distant memories, all burned alive and well once contemplation overtook the bloodlust of the wander-wearied ...

7 likes

My Student's Keeper

Submitted to Contest #195

2:17 P.M. The clock was ticking off the wall waiting for one of my students’ parents to come rumbling through the door. It’s a shame how awfully easy it is to tick people off nowadays, isn’t it? I jokingly say that Hell hath no fury like a parent that’s never heard the word ‘accountability,’ but the sad part of that joke is that it’s not as much of a joke as it is a way of dealing with the way things are nowadays. 20 years I’ve been in this profession, and never have parents been as disrespectful as they’ve been the past few years. Warning: ...

7 likes

Cherry Blossom On A Hill of Restless Hearts

Submitted to Contest #191

It was like I was trapped in a moment. Though she was warm against me, I felt like I was frozen in carbonite. Putting two things next two each other often highlights each others' personality traits, which explained why the beauty of Mount Pleasant High bloomed so brilliantly next to the Aaron Christopher, the reserved wallflower (aka me). She felt like a marshmallow with flesh, but somehow also felt like an anchor on my arm. It was like not wanting to move because a dog was sitting on my lap and I didn’t want to disturb the moment at perfect...

9 likes

Nine Lives Electronics

Submitted to Contest #190

TW: the occasional no-no word To all our loyal customers… After four decades of serving Third Street, we’ve lost the good fight. To all the D&Ders, the Smashaholics, the Arcadians, the Mangaphiles, the Funkolites that kept us alive during our times of service, thank you. Meeting you is truly what’s made our time worthwhile. We’ve been everything from a safe space for geek culture to a tourist spot featured on AV4N News to finally a time capsule for memories nobody can uproot. If we know you all like we think we do, you’ll find ...

7 likes

Tails of Tragedy

Submitted to Contest #189

The medley of the summer wind sang a tune of good fortune. Though this day was like any other for me and my daughters, Yena and Frost, it would be like a dream day for anyone who lived outside of our bubble, my family’s slice of paradise, untouched by the scourge of the outside world. I admit, though, I sometimes had fun with Humans that strayed too far from their lumbersome lodgings. Humans and Quasis (half animals) mix like oil and water, as the former like to say. The more worlds collided. the more tragedy was invited to each other’s door...

6 likes

Pillowman

Submitted to Contest #187

“Foolish human! After besting your father, I won your servitude!” My cat, probably. Technically speaking, he wasn’t mine. He belonged to my dad, aka the one who fed/pet/named him. The little guy with a big ego (or so I imagine) was a British Shorthair named Fuzz Aldrin. If it were up to me, his name would be Epeius, the mastermind of the Trojan Horse. I could probably be called speciesist, but that was a perspective I couldn’t shake. He was a self-serving beast, and my dad was the only one between us that cared enough about him enou...

14 likes

Fantastic Voyages of the World

Submitted to Contest #185

Time is a seamstress. She stitches importance into the otherwise mundane. Coffee shops on our favorite street, the bridge where we had our first kiss, and in my case, a book that my grandpa read me on his knee. It was always the calm quiet during a loud thunderstorm or a nice way of passing a summer afternoon. As the years turned into double digits, however, those stories took on a new shape, a new importance. Shame on me, I let the book fall into disrepair and neglect. The cover was coated with dust, but in my mind’s eye, the stories shone...

11 likes

Somnambula

Submitted to Contest #184

The excitement in the air was palpable. Authorities are still trying to determine the source. Suspects include the beachside breeze, the near-fatal intake of Cherry Pibb and cotton candy, and the dozens of distractions populating the Atlantic City Boardwalk. There were many old-school culprits that could be held culpable, but all signs pointed to the new kid in town: Somnambula, the zombie-survival AR experience. This revolutionary experience was what brought the Corencia brothers– Chris, Kyle, and Bart– from further up north the east...

10 likes

Iris of the Storm

Submitted to Contest #182

This story contains occasional offensive language and tackles themes of death/unfair incarceration WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP! The electronic crow of the early morning alarm peeled each person out of their metal cocoons. As half the single-person cells became empty (while the other half banged on their locked doors like dogs going mad in a cage), the newer inmates rubbed their eyes and yawned. Their time aboard could be measured in their temperament. For some, this was the first Storm Warning they were experiencing. Meanwhile, the time-...

7 likes

Everest

Submitted to Contest #181

Add mountaineers to the groups of people who count science as their natural enemy. Imagine how much their lives would be if there was no gravity, no climate, no natural disasters? The process would be so much faster if they could moonwalk to the literal moon. Then again, the struggle is part of what makes each person’s journey worthwhile. Nobody brags about climbing a hill in the park with their kids. What is a mountain, though, if not a hill with teeth? Mountaining-extraordinaire Sora Skylar had been climbing mountains since he was young, ...

6 likes

A Beauty, A Beast, and A Beating

Submitted to Contest #179

tw// strong language, beating scene, homphobic slur after protagonist is confronted by bully; these are high schoolers, including one of which who has little compassion for social decorum (despite being the one being aggressed against in this very specific instance) December 15. The date stuck to the top of my head with dry misery. It was the date equivalent to eating one of those cafeteria biscuits that need a swig of near-expired chocolate milk to go down smooth. If I had a choice, it’d be more like the center of a Philly pretzel or the...

10 likes

The Last Magician

Submitted to Contest #176

People nowadays have a habit of romanticizing the past. I’d say this is a bad habit, but with how I think of the first and second millennia A.D. (most commonly referred to as The Witching Years), I have no room to talk. I’ll bet a show’s salary I’m the only one on the planet nostalgic for the times when people would routinely die from easily curable diseases. Wizards were somewhat like an archaic Big Pharma, we not-so-secretly benefit from others’ pain because it benefits us: we give people something to believe in, they strengthen our power ...

4 likes

Spoils of War

Submitted to Contest #174

My body was protected, but my soul absorbed the destruction of a poor Syrian town that served as a stratagem. The nuke we dropped on them was metaphorical, but it was as if I absorbed the radiation of the strike. As if I were struck mad, I couldn’t help but laugh as the world burned around me, as my weapon of destruction was set loose on the unwary. If I still had my mind about me, I’d have dropped to my knees, weeped over the humanity of the carnage carved through the Middle East like I set the fire that set the Hindenburg alight. But I di...

10 likes