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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Apr, 2021
Submitted to Contest #129
This day arrives each year, and, even though I am aware of how time works, each recursion knocks me off my feet. Sometimes it rains, occasionally it’s sunny (rarely), but most years it either snows heavily or deep frost swallows the world. It is late winter, after all; and, in the mountains, late winter is still hard winter. This year it’s snowing, and there is some mercy in that. My mind catches on each thick flake as it rushes to the ground, vying to outrun its brethren. Then another, and another, there’s no space between snowflakes for t...
Submitted to Contest #122
The package sits neatly on top of my tightly made bed. I stare at the carton container of an unassuming brown color, devoid of all inscription, for five minutes before venturing a step near it. The fact that I hadn’t ordered anything wasn’t the strangest detail. But rather I wondered how it reached my bedroom upstairs when there hadn’t been anyone home all day. The gate and front door had remained closed, and there appeared no sign of an intruder. But even this wasn’t the strangest thing to have happened today. My eyes dart to the backpack ...
Submitted to Contest #120
I wonder if I had tears to shed, would they be falling now? Or is the point of tears long passed. When they bring in the new captives, I scan their faces to record biometric data. I help out where I can. Most are young and male, only three females in this batch, no children. At least that’s a mercy. Only the youngest children are absorbed into the shelter, the older ones are treated no different from the adults. The humans proceeding before me are not healthy. They are dangerously dehydrated, of course, and that results into a sum of conditi...
Submitted to Contest #119
“It’s so quiet in here,” Tom always said when he came through the door. “You’d swear the world was ending out there, with the waves crashin’ and the wind blowin’, but in here not a peep.” I never answered, I only glanced at him and smiled. There was a lot to smile about back then. His head of thick blond hair, the smell of sweet lemon mint coming off him, those strong, reliable arms that used to carry me through each room of the house. I spent evenings just enjoying his presence, wondering how I got so lucky. I certainly didn’t deserve it. W...
Submitted to Contest #117
My dear, If this letter reaches you, it is from beyond the veil. Forgive my humor. As you know, I was never a fan of the written word. Words set down gather power of their own, grow roots and spread far beyond their creator’s reach. Losing control like that is what frightens me the most. Still, you asked me two questions that I wish to answer before stepping outside my door tonight. Downstairs awaits the Circle of the Veil. One. You asked me when I first glimpsed through the Veil. The answer lies deep within my childhood, a memory I have ra...
Submitted to Contest #95
I stand between two doors, beneath the Arch of the Temple. The Arch is painted white, with golden symbols, meanings lost in the tide of the centuries. Right above me, a symbol I do understand: a red tear. One door leads forward, the other back. One door is easy. I choose the other. The Arch room left behind, I enter a great Hall, decorated all around in golden vines, interspersed with markings of color. More red tears, white circles, black shapes of people. Not people. Women. The hall has a rhythm, dictated by immense stained-glass windows....
Submitted to Contest #94
Fear had coursed through my blood before in life, numbing my brain, icing my heart, but never like the moment I entered the church. Devin laughed, “I dare you,” he said. As if I could refuse the thirty thousand silver coins he offered. Nothing to him. * The first time I felt real fear was as a child, walking the cobbled street beside my old Nana. In our daily travels, we had never before gone near the Blood Church before that day. The day after Midsummer, when townsfolk only left their dwellings if they had no choice, and the wind had alrea...
Submitted to Contest #93
“What do you mean, it’s my fault? How is this my fault?” Jean doesn’t answer. Instead she continues picking up plastic cups that line the room and aggressively throwing them in a huge garbage bag. “How is this not your fault? You told them we have it,” Jean finally says, not stopping to look at me. “They knew we planned on using it. Do you think all those jerks would have turned up here tonight if they weren’t hoping the Ritual would happen?” “They came because they’re our friends.” “Our friends? Is this what friends do?” She gestures gener...
Submitted to Contest #92
*Freddie I arrived alone at Rosewood House in the late afternoon. Light flooded me as I first entered the parlor of what was to be our new home. Sun streamed through the huge bay window overlooking the hillside landscape. “I want nothing but light in my house,” I remembered Elsa saying, so nothing could dampen my joy as I basked in the sunlight. She would love this. As I rode to the nearest post office, I daydreamed of immediately furnishing the house. Strong, solid pieces, to last the decades and offer ample space for the memories to be. T...
Shortlisted for Contest #90 ⭐️
I first see him stumbling through the junk, tripping over jutting pieces, barely remaining upright as a Collector pushes him forward. He’s clearly not used to walking in the gear, his heavy boots catching on scattered debris, his shoulders hunched with the weight of it. His gloved hands keep reaching for the face mask, but he doesn’t have the dexterity to undo it as he goes. Luckily. Right before he reaches my sector, the inevitable happens. I watch in slow motion as he miscalculates a step and lifts his thick-soled foot too little, lurching...
Submitted to Contest #88
I knew I was lost when I reached the tree with a hollow in shape of a mushroom. I’d passed it before. Surrounded by the canopy turning autumn gold, I glare down the path I chose before. How did I wind back here? Now my options are limited. My cell reception is still out, the crossroad looks the same as before, and from the glint on the leaves I surmise the sun is setting. As panic steadily creeps in, I stare at the blasted tree and a thought strikes me. Some scraping and sweating later, I manage to climb high enough to lift my phone above ...
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