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Harken Void

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Mar, 2020

Stories (100)
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589 Followers
22 Following

100 Stories

3734 karma pts

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Henry

Submitted to Contest #194

Henry was not a simple child to love, nor was he easy to understand.  Born to a woman of society’s elite who dropped him onto an extravagant Chinese carpet, one likely worth as much as the county of Cheshire, and so drunk she only noticed her baby’s arrival once she stepped onto the umbilical cord, you could say that Henry was off to a rough start. One that would set the tone for the rest of his life. Henry’s mother’s name was Priscilla and she hadn’t worked a day in her life. Spoiled from birth, she was one of the privileged few on pla...

14 likes 3 comments 3
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All Hallow's Eve

Submitted to Contest #117

October thirty-first, Halloween. The one night of the year when the ethereal and material realms come so close their boundaries collide. The one night people should stay indoors, surrounded by a circle of salt and warding symbols, praying that the wickedness did not find its way into the safety of their homes. Yet for the five, it was the one night in the year they got a break from being themselves. Five kids stood on the edge of a sidewalk late at night, staring down an empty street. Lights shone from most houses, laughter, and music comi...

16 likes 2 comments 2
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The Forgiveness Permit

Submitted to Contest #116

Six thirty-one P.M. The end of another grueling day at work, which Marla couldn’t wait to drown in some cheap wine and TV drama. Luna was already dozing off in the baby seat, so perhaps she could have the evening free of baby emergencies. God knew she needed one. She turned left on her street and drove onto the parking lot. Over the months the lot became a sort of mental trigger for her. She knew that as soon as she turned the engine off, she could start to unwind. Marla felt the stones of stress starting to loosen as she took her usual spac...

25 likes 9 comments 9
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Speaker_2

Lights were always on at Neo Sapience Industries, as work on developing the next generation of artificial intelligence never stopped. More than ever in human history, the work was seen as a high priority, both in terms of technological advancement as well as a lucrative business model, predicted to skyrocket in the future.  Understandably, therefore, the lights were always burning on the development floor of the complex. Although tonight, there was no development being done at Neo Sapience; at least not development regarding the AI. Ton...

2 likes 1 comment 1
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To Mock a Bird

Submitted to Contest #102

Nature has some bizarre creatures in her arsenal, but humans are by far her most baffling invention. They are the only creatures that can contradict themselves; that can lie, and believe their lies. Humans will purposefully act against themselves and convince themselves that they are doing great. It’s insanity. Imagine a tall tree that would refuse to grow upright, because it feared falling. One day it would inevitably fall, as death is the nature of all things, but it usually only comes after a lifetime of living. This tree could have grown...

19 likes 0 comments 0
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The Pass

Submitted to Contest #100

Tanek Strife-stricken watched the enemy encamped in the valley below. From his vantage point on the cliff above the pass, he could see their tents painting the once green fields in striking yellows and purples. Such beautiful colors, bringing such pain and misery to Tanek’s people.  He stood there, on the barren rocks of his forefathers, listening to the wind carrying the flapping sounds of enemy banners up the mountain slope, and felt his world tremble. The war had been raging for four years already. Four years of holding the pass with...

10 likes 0 comments 0
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Homo Sapiens Nescium

Submitted to Contest #90

Extinction. There’s a certain finality to the word, that summons a primordial sense of dread and doom to the core of our being. It means the end of a species. Not just the happenstance death of a few individuals you don’t even know, but the final, irreversible end of an entire world population of a species, meaning there would never be such a life form ever again. Uniqueness, lost forever due to the very trait that made it so special in the first place.  Extinction is happening all the time. It didn’t just happen to the dinosaurs and it...

15 likes 0 comments 0
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Moments of Synchronicity

Submitted to Contest #81

The goddamned, blasted old piece of shriveled wood creaked so damn loud that Bartholomeus half believed it would start a fire under his ass. That would be something. A rocking chair, starting a fire and burning an old man to death because he couldn’t get up and leave in time. Well, it didn’t sound that Lucilda’s chair was any better. The damned old thing was creaking just as loud, horribly out of sync with his own. What a devilishly accurate analogy to their marriage - terribly out of sync, just like these chairs. “Vanilla and hazelnut,” Bar...

24 likes 3 comments 3
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Frequency of Insanity

Submitted to Contest #80

The day that humankind dreamt of for so long, and was so terrified of, had come with barely an announcement in the back-end section of some obscure scientific magazine. A frequency had been found. And hidden within it, extraterrestrial life. Things that are not accompanied with much pomp and glitter seldom catch the attention of human eyes, for they have been trained to ignore the mundane. It takes a lot of noise to get someone’s attention to break off from their personalized universe of digital distraction; a pity, then, that the frequency ...

20 likes 4 comments 4
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Distractions

Submitted to Contest #78

Aaron planted his butt on the chair, feeling energized and determined not to get up until the day’s work was done. He had gotten up early, as he managed to most days now, and gotten through his morning ritual of workout, visualization, contemplation and a big yummy breakfast. He sat down, fresh out of the shower, ready to kick ass and take names. They say that it takes three weeks to build up a habit and stick with it. Well, Aaron discovered that’s not the case. For him, it took at least 90 days to make something permanent. Today he’d reach ...

33 likes 0 comments 0
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Ride of a Century

Submitted to Contest #77

Gunter threw another log on the fire and cursed every god he knew for sending the cold so deep into his bones. The fireplace brimmed with lively orange flames and the wool blankets stacked so thick over his body, that he could barely breathe under them. Yet, Gunter felt cold. He didn’t know whether that was from the freezing temperatures outside or the creeping of death. If you’re going to take me, you might as well be quick about it, he thought, tucking himself deeper in the blankets. For a man well over a hundred years old, death sure...

22 likes 4 comments 4
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The Cabin

Submitted to Contest #77

Welcome to the end of your world. No need to worry - you’ve done plenty of that throughout your life already. This isn’t some doomsday apocalypse like you see in the movies or read about in books. The world is still spinning, all the things you hold dear still exist - only we’ve removed them from you for the next ten days. This end of the world will be for you only, your own personal experience. This is your chance to start living your life anew. Notice that the cabin you’ll be staying in is off the grid. That means no connection to society ...

19 likes 3 comments 3
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Dirty Secrets

Submitted to Contest #76

“You did WHAT?” “It’s not that bad.” “No, it's even worse!” “I mean, it just sorta happened-” “Just happened? Are you serious?” “Oh, don’t be so dramatic! Like it could never happen to you if you were in my place.” “Of course it couldn’t! Are you even hearing yourself? This is crazy, you’re crazy!” “Uh, why did I even tell you…” “Yeah, why did you? You shouldn’t! You should never speak of things like that - you should forget all about it and bury it in the deepest part of your mind where you cannot find it so you don’t ever bring it up!...

24 likes 7 comments 7
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Aadi's Choice

Submitted to Contest #70

He had to do it. Aadi Rama had been working his whole life towards this. He had not only desired it for so long and with such intensity but had also sacrificed too much to let the opportunity slip his grasp now. When it came to fulfilling one’s dreams, no cost was too steep. Not even the cost of abandoning one’s deepest values. Not if it meant getting a dream fulfilled in return. Aadi signed the project papers with his name and shipped it to his superiors. *** It was as if Aadi’s destiny had been written in the fabric of the night sky on...

17 likes 4 comments 4
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Family: The Unseen Pandemic

Submitted to Contest #69

In the beginning, there was everything. Then, a singularity appeared - something split off of that everything and became separate from it, individual. That something was you. Ever wondered why babies cry when they’re born? It’s the pain of being cut off from infinity of ‘nobody’ and becoming a ‘somebody’, someone in a body. It is worse pain than dying.  Birth is a traumatic experience and we all go through it. There has not been a single person in this world in the history of mankind that did not come here other than by birth. The momen...

33 likes 9 comments 9
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