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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2024
Submitted to Contest #322
My father was a runner. Every day he would wake before the sun rose, and I’d hear the front door click against the frame as he crept out to thunder around the city. He would never whisper goodbye, or kiss our sleeping foreheads. He would simply be gone when the house began to stir. My mother would make us breakfast, get us to school and reliably see us through the day. My father would go straight from his pavement pounding to his very ordinary office job. He would not return until my brother and I were safely back in warm pyjamas and ready t...
Submitted to Contest #321
It was unusual to find another traveller on the road to the dead lands. Plenty moved in the opposite direction, eyes down, trying everything to avoid acknowledging the existence of the blackened landscape. But not once in his long journey had Bolden found someone imitating his own path. It was suspicious. He had intentionally maintained a distance between himself and the stranger as they both strode along the old road. He walked warily, matching the speed of the man throughout the ever-stretching day of travel. That evening, after the miles ...
Submitted to Contest #320
The deep and dark forest was a tapestry of green. Hanging leaves, shrubs and branches, idyllic and serene. Emma flitted and flapped, sprinting around the tall trees. She was lightning, a blur, going wherever she pleased. Her feathers were preened; they were smooth as a sheet. That evening she hunted, for something to eat. It was never a challenge to fill her small belly. She was fast and the opportunities, well, they were many. Bugs, nuts, berries and plenty of fruits; her favourites were the freshest from newly grown shoots. She ate her fil...
Submitted to Contest #319
Darkness parted ahead of Sir Baristan, like waters before a ship. The murk was sliced apart by the wondrous effect of his armour. Enchantments etched into the metal created the fortunate side effect of a golden, glowing light, which emanated strongly from the full suit whenever it touched against his skin. The effect was strong enough to illuminate much of the underground cavern, allowing the army at his back to see a good distance forward, where normally all would be lost to the stone above. He winced whenever his eyes drifted up to the opp...
Submitted to Contest #317
Reginald saw no change at all in the man sat across from him. He didn’t appear to have even moved. His old face was still creased with deep lines; his cheeks were redder than they used to be and what was left of his hair was just as grey as always. The damn fool had gone and gotten old. He hadn’t truly noticed until that moment. But then, when was the last time he had really looked at his friend? It never seemed necessary. He knew the twit's face well enough, having to deal with it every damn day for the past thirty years. No matter. He was ...
Submitted to Contest #316
Pebble sized fragments of broken concrete clattered in bursts down the walls of the crater. Ethan ignored them. He likewise blocked out the sound of the sirens above, the shouts from all around, and the constant splashing of water. The broken pipes would continue to gush torrents into the hole until someone thought to turn off the supply. He refused to remind them. Mosaic shards of man-made stone decorated the sloped walls. Wet dirt, wind-blown dust and twisted metal added their own sculptures to the gallery of destruction. Ethan had seen it...
Winner of Contest #314 🏆
It was almost impossible to make out the lone figure, shuffling slowly across the expanse of sand, far below. Only his movement gave him away. Wrapped in pale shreds of clothing, caked in tan grit and burnt red by the oppressive sun, he was all but a part of the desert already. Anubis, crouched in the shade of a rocky outcrop, panted his jackal tongue in an effort to cool himself. The heat of the clear day was extreme, the weight of its pressure, unrelenting. He pressed as much of his bare skin against the rocks as possible, his fingers spre...
Submitted to Contest #313
“Are you there, God? It’s me…” Alice whispered.Her knees pinched on the polished timber flooring of her bedroom, but the expensive linen sheets under her elbows were a soft reprieve. The rough callouses of her palms pressed together, her overused hands finding a brief recess with only each other to sense. It’s something no one ever told you about being blind, how abused your hands would become.“I’m here, Alice.” God said, his commanding voice reverberating from above.She laughed with joy, soft tears running from her clouded and broken eyes. ...
Submitted to Contest #312
Every car that rumbled its engines past Ava’s new front door was a torment. She smoothed the edge of the bay window curtain between her fingers, frowning at how she had worn its edge with her repetitive twitching. They had said ten a.m. It was six minutes past. They were late. She released her fabric victim and walked back to the kitchen. Flicking the filled kettle on for the fourth time. His chaperone would want tea. She stared at the plate of biscuits, all ready to go, and pushed one with the end of her finger to form a perfect line of reg...
Submitted to Contest #311
George winced at the sound of his abused handbrake crunching its way up. State funds rarely stretched to preventative maintenance, and every click of the handle drove nails of frustration into his skull. He silenced his siren, left the lights spinning red and blue against the trees and called in the traffic stop to dispatch. Reaching over to the mounted laptop, he checked those damned boxes to confirm he had followed protocol, entered the plate number, switched on his body cam and finally, was able to open his door and act like a human being...
Submitted to Contest #309
Firelight glinted from the pommel of Marius’s sword, and he wondered how something so polished, could feel so dirty. He gripped the wooden handle, that he had also cleaned to a shine, and pinned the tip of its blade into the sand. A place it could do no more harm. His Gladius had survived every battle on the cursed trek through Arabia, and was beginning to show its tired age in the same way that he was. It had faded under the harsh sun, been abraded by the sand and was stained with gallons of blood that was wiped free, yet still remained to ...
Submitted to Contest #308
Context: Currently writing this from within my in-laws holiday cabin in the Grampians Mountains, Victoria. The views from the windows and the first nations story of the place (https://www.visitgrampians.com.au/see-do/culture/gariwerd-creation-story) fit this week's prompt perfectly. Not to mention my partners insistence that there's a mysterious animal out there somewhere... They didn’t believe her. Not a single one of them. It was insulting. Asha's anger flared, and she growled as she was abruptly forced to take a longer stride than usual. ...
Submitted to Contest #307
Murmuring conversations simmered between magical faculty members, forming a bed of sound that was immediately halted with a scattering of gasps. Vincent had slammed down the ever-warm coffee pot, which had faithfully served the staff room for generations, exerting a little more frustration than intended. The deafening clatter of iron on ceramic shocked all of Eldrich Castle’s teachers into silence, and forced a wince of regret into his scrunching shoulders. He had not wanted the attention he was now going to get. “Everything okay, Professor ...
Submitted to Contest #304
Flinn soared across a purple sky, his long coat snapping against the head wind and his dark hair alive amid the current. An intense light rained down from a tapestry of white stars, back lighting him in an ethereal glow. His mastery of the night realm bled from his powerful form in flight. If anyone could see him, he would look bloody awesome. Unfortunately, as usual, everyone else in the world of dreams was asleep. He sighed at the wasted effort he always put into his dramatic arrival, and slowed to hover over the town of Lunar Bay, ready t...
Submitted to Contest #301
Ansa watched the flickering candlelight dance across the tan of Marid’s bare skin, held rapt by the hypnotic light show. She could have sworn he glowed with his own dark fire, one that pushed back against the solid shadows that encompassed them. Lit only by a few candles, they existed in a private haven of light amid the encroaching late hour. She suspected he went shirtless in an effort to distract her from the game that rested on the square table between them. It was frustratingly effective and she had to work to tear her eyes away from th...
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