Inkstained Introvert

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2020

Stories (40)

40 Stories

1114 karma pts

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“A Different Sort of Autumn” by Inkstained Introvert

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. I sighed. “Alexaaander,” I called in a big-sister tone. After a few moments, Alex’s face peeped out from behind a maple tree at the edge of the forest. “You always ruin the fun,” he grumbled, loping slowly to me across the leaf-scattered lawn. I rolled my eyes. “Come on, Alex. Put it out. You’ve already burned the house down once; isn’t that enough?” When he hesitated, I added, “You know, if you do, Mom’s gonna take it out on me.” Alex scowled. “Why can’t we just let it burn?” “You know...

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“Do As You're Told” by Inkstained Introvert

Submitted to Contest #62

I’ve always found it funny how Tellers are never wrong.  My best friend’s older sister, Kyteari, was Told when she was nine. She was Told she would become a dragonrider; which everyone laughed at, because dragonriders must be unwed, untouched, unbound, virgin, clean, free; and Kyt was long since betrothed to the Duchess of Aolderen’s secondborn son. Even as her parents laughed the Telling off, there was uncertainty in their eyes, but they laughed nonetheless. “Preposterous,” they said. “A dragonrider, our daughter? Never.” And then Kyt ...

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“To Infinity?” by Inkstained Introvert

Submitted to Contest #61

It was called Galaxy, and for good reason.It was nothing more than a ripoff of the Milky Way candy bar, only with dark chocolate instead of milk and fancy edible glitter in silvery hues of dark purple and blue. Pippin and I used to skate to the drugstore on the corner and buy a bar, Saturdays, before our parents got off work. We’d pool our jangly collection of nickels and quarters until we had $0.79, and then we’d split one. Pippin would eat hers slowly, and mine fast, in classic girl-boy contrast. We saved the wrappers and stored them in on...

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“Romance, Grey and Desperate” by Inkstained Introvert

Submitted to Contest #60

I can’t do this. We’re only seventeen. I pull back the covers, swing my legs over the side of the cot, and stand up quietly. I grab my pistol from under my pillow and slip on a jacket from the hook at the door. I unbolt the door quietly, slip out of the bunker, and lock it behind me. I move slowly up the steps to the world’s surface. I look at the moon. It’s paper-thin and grey. Probably around four in the morning. I glance around. Everything, of course, is flat. Shattered remains of glass, concrete, wood, barbed wire, metal, bricks, and hop...

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“Calliope (part one)” by Inkstained Introvert

Submitted to Contest #59

I drum my fingers against my leg and peer out the window to my right, wondering how long it is until we arrive on Rectar. Not that I want to go. I don’t. This spaceship is just really hot. I stare down at the duffel bag scrunched underneath my chair, then suddenly stand up. “I’m going to the bathroom,” I announce to no one in particular and rush past the seats in which my mom, dad, and older brothers Aiden and Xaviar are sitting. I stumble throughout the foggily-lit hallways, dizzy from the palpable pulse of the gravity field and speed stabi...

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“Conversation with Kara” by Inkstained Introvert

Submitted to Contest #58

I tap my foot awkwardly, shifting my eyes around the dimly lit elevator, and try to ignore the painful silence that lingers between me and the other passenger. Just two more floors til floor five. She’s getting off there too, but most likely heading in a different direction. Just a few more seconds to go, and then this cringeworthy silence will end, and you can get in your car and leave the parking garage and go home.  There is no idiotic elevator music. I can’t tell if that’s good or bad. The space is cramped, lined with a musty bluei...

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“The Feline Family” by Inkstained Introvert

Submitted to Contest #57

Lizzy knocked on the front door and pushed it open quietly. “Hello?” “Come in,” her mother called unenthusiastically. Lizzy set down the carrying case she was holding, out of view in the foyer, hung up her jacket on the coat rack, and stepped into the living room, where everyone was sitting silently on couches, drinking tea. She stopped for a moment and surveyed the room, deciding who to sit next to.  Her mother and father were a no-go; they were the only two on their couch, but there was a space in between them, and only an amueter...

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“London and Olly” by Inkstained Introvert

Submitted to Contest #56

I don’t know what drew me to him.  Maybe the fact that he was feeding the ducks, which no one seems to do anymore, or that he was wearing a shirt that said “Van Gogh, Van Goghing, Van Gone” with corresponding pictures, or perhaps it was because, out of everyone else in the park, he was the only one standing still. There were a dozen people in Hathaway Park that day, and most of them were moving hurriedly from one end to the other, head down, mask on, walking, walking, walking, getting on with their busy, important life. The few people...

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“Bonfire Buddies” by Inkstained Introvert

Submitted to Contest #56

“What are you doing?” I lean over my best friend Alana’s shoulder and peer at her phone, trying to not become further blinded by the astounding amount of light that’s coming from the screen. “Turn your brightness down, woman.” She ignores me and turns in her camp chair, nudging me with her shoulder. “I’m texting Kalyn.” “Ohhhhh, Kalyn,” I slur in her ear. She huffs and continues typing. I sit back down in my own chair and poke at the fire, listening to Alex and Dessi argue about where the North Star is. “No, it’s in the Big Dipper!” “But loo...

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“A Cannibal's Cookbook” by Inkstained Introvert

Submitted to Contest #55

“This is so cool.” My older sister and I were poring over my Gran’s old cookbook. Technically, it had belonged to our grandmother’s grandmother, but Gran had contributed so much over the years that the book was more hers than anyone else’s. Jade and I had grabbed the musty book out from where Mom kept it hidden, at the very top of the bookshelf in the living room. The cookbook had only been ours for a few weeks, ever since Gran died. We’d been cleaning out her house for several days following the funeral when Mom found the cookbook in the ...

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Author bio

"he was popularly supposed 'to write,' but it was understood among his friends that inquiries as to literary output were not encouraged."