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Iona Cottle

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2019

Stories (101)
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626 Followers
22 Following

101 Stories

3097 karma pts

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Her Last Hope

Submitted to Contest #82

The code scrolled up the screen, bright green on the black background, full ‘Matrix mode’, as her flat mate called it, in that sickened tone she always used when she had to reference sci-fi. Leah drummed her fingers on the desk as she waited for the test to finish compiling. “Come on, come on.” This one last tweak, to squash what should be the last glitch in the software, and she’d be on the home stretch. “Hm? What’s up, not getting through to Zion?” Marianne was sprawled on the sofa, channel hopping as she waited for her hair to dry. ...

25 likes 1 comment 1
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Just Another Valentine’s Day

Submitted to Contest #81

Marcie slipped the roses into the vase, tweaking them until they splayed out evenly, the three heads pointing in different directions. One for each setting, and the other one… somewhere else. “Oh dear,” Marcie laughed. She leant in close and held the flower head in her fingers, holding it still while she smelt it. “You’re the third wheel, aren’t you?” She inhaled deeply, sweet floral notes over the smells of the kitchen, and her eyes fell to the table. “Yeah. You and me both, buddy.” “Marcie! Are we ready?” Balancing the rose steady ag...

13 likes 1 comment 1
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Everything Fades

Submitted to Contest #80

Back home, in the kitchen she’d kept spotless, was a picture. It hung by the back door, and Anna-Lee had walked past it so often that she didn’t see it any more. If she’d been asked to describe her kitchen, she’d talk about the double stove, and the wonderful gas hobs. She’d talk about her large fridge and the separate freezer, and all the racks she had on the wall for hanging her utensils. With a sparkle in her eyes she’d talk about her herb garden, all the hand-painted pots that grew on a bookcase, so quaint and individual (or so she thoug...

18 likes 1 comment 1
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Sisters Are As Sisters Do

Submitted to Contest #79

There was nothing about the two girls that, from the outside at least, was the same. Roxanne was tall, athletic and loud, whilst Wren was short for her age, and though she was always smiling she rarely laughed. One drank the spotlight, whilst you forgot the other was in the room. The only thing that connected the two girls was that they arrived at the school at the same time, but as they were in different years no one noticed. During the school day their paths rarely crossed, and if they did no one spotted the smiles they saved for each ot...

14 likes 2 comments 2
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Everything and Nothing

Submitted to Contest #78

It started with football. It was something that all the kids did, and Mia was no exception. She’d gone to the club every Saturday for two months, until one Saturday morning she refused to put her boots on and sulked under her bed until her father gave up. When her brother came back from practise Mia said nothing about it, carrying on as though she’d never pestered her parents to let her go in the first place. Dropping in and out of extra-curricular activities was part and parcel of growing up in the schools Mia went to, and each year, term...

21 likes 2 comments 2
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The Melt At The End

Submitted to Contest #77

The snow had fallen all night, and now the light from the early morning sun glistened off the vast white panorama that had been the back garden. As she waited for the kettle to boil Hannah stood at the back door and stared in wonder. The lawn had never been so flat or perfect, and it looked as though it were made from a single sheet of pure white felt. The path wound down the middle, visible only as a slightly sunken trail of perfection. Great clumps of snow clung to the branches of the tree and the bushes, weighing them down, smothering t...

11 likes 0 comments 0
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Hiding Behind Our Screens

Submitted to Contest #76

The metallic ringtone went off and, after letting it buzz for a moment, playing it cool, Maria click the green button. “Hello!” she said as the picture came into focus. Pixel by pixel Suzanne’s face resolved itself. Another precious few seconds of isolation, no sudden meeting of their eyes across the room. As she waited for a response Maria clenched her hands and twisted the ends of her jumper. “Hi!” Suzanne said at last. The fuzzy image didn’t pick up the way the tips of her smile dropped at the bad picture or at the short pause before ...

20 likes 2 comments 2
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Death Meets A Life(Coach)

Submitted to Contest #75

“It is time for you to go.” The shrouded figure leant heavily on their scythe and peered out from the depths of their hood. An outsider might’ve suggested that the hump in its back was old age, and the pressure of the millennia of work that it had endured. In truth, it was boredom. “But I wasn’t ready!” the obese woman cried. “I was going to the Bahamas next month!” The figure looked at what was left of the woman in the corporeal world. The bag from her takeaway chips was still perched on the arm of the sofa next to her, with half a do...

22 likes 4 comments 4
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250 Days

Shortlisted for Contest #74 ⭐️

Esme sat and watched the sun pass across her room, just as she did every day, waiting for the right time. That wasn’t to say that she watched it all day, every day, although she did spend a lot of her time – probably more than most – just watching the box of light trek across her painted wall. It wasn’t as though there was all that much else to do. During the morning, when the light was best, she did draw and read, but after her lunch arrived through the little flap in the middle of her door, she’d settle into her large armchair and watc...

72 likes 20 comments 20
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Lonely Cages

Submitted to Contest #73

When the phone started ringing, Jacob jumped, and there was a moment’s flailing about as he dug out the television remote before he answered. “Hello?” “Hey bro, are you in at the moment?” Jacob blinked at the muted TV screen. Where else was he supposed to be going? There was a lockdown on, in all but name at least. “Yeah. I’m in. Though I can’t have visitors.” On the off-chance his sister Maria had forgotten, though how anyone could have done when it had been going on all year was a wonder. “No contact delivery, it’ll be fine. Simon...

14 likes 0 comments 0
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Rebel Without The Numbers

Submitted to Contest #72

“Good morning team!” The buzz in the room quietened down as the bulky man in the once-smart suit at the front of the room dropped his stack of files on the desk. “Day 1765. I’m sure I don’t need to reiterate how important it is that we don’t mess things up now–” “But you’ve done it anyway,” Bhatt muttered to Hansen, as he did every day. As usual she smiled; it was as much a part of her morning routine as the boss saying how important the day was. “We’ve all come too far for this to fail now,” their boss was still saying. “So keep your he...

9 likes 0 comments 0
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With Friends Like These

Submitted to Contest #71

Katrin stood in her front room, biting her lip, frowning at her coffee table. In one hand she held a tablecloth, in the other the stack of doilies. When she’d been planning the day her mind had settled on doilies, and from the instant she’d seen them in the shop she’d been picturing. But now the time had come to put them out, she was having second thoughts. It wasn’t just that half her guests would mock her for them – after all the years she’d known them she was used to their gentle teasing. The problem bugging her was whether the skinny whi...

14 likes 3 comments 3
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The Proof of Grief

Submitted to Contest #70

The verdict rang out through the silent courtroom. “Not guilty.” And after that Shannon heard nothing. A gun could’ve gone off next to her and she wouldn’t have noticed. Her mind was reeling. Not guilty?! But… how? In a fugue daze she sought out the young police detective who had liaised with her on the case. There he sat down below, shaking his head, but not looking surprised. Shannon grabbed the rail in front of her and started pulling herself to her feet, before her boyfriend Martin caught her. “Don’t,” he whispered, his voice sof...

8 likes 1 comment 1
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Not My Lie

Submitted to Contest #69

Jason took a deep breath as he leant on the window. The meeting room was just down the hall, but it might as well have been a million miles away. No matter how much he tried he couldn’t get his legs to work, couldn’t push himself away and turn and walk. Come on, he thought, walking is easy. Even children can do it. Yeah, thought the knot of fear in his stomach, but children don’t have to walk into that meeting. The plan – the great plan that he’d been concocting for weeks – had been to arrive early, so he could be the first one in the ro...

21 likes 2 comments 2
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New Beginnings Start With A Gun

Submitted to Contest #68

The gunshot echoed around the foyer. Anya had never heard a gun go off before, not in real life, and yet she knew what it was straight away. The coins she was dividing up into the till scattered to the floor, the noise of them lost beneath all the screaming. There was another gunshot. “Everyone, shut up!” The single voice reverberated as loud as the gun, cracking a little at the end with the strain of being heard over all the chaos. Bit by bit the hubbub died down, until the only sounds were whimpering and the occasional soft sob. “Tha...

21 likes 4 comments 4
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