Josh C

Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2020

Stories (17)

17 Stories

711 karma pts

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“Beneath the Canals” by Josh C

Submitted to Contest #103

Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, I tied the boat in front of the boarded up door. At one time every canal in the city would be alive with noise, criss-crossed with drying clothes, bedsheets and banners. I needn’t have worried. With so many houses left empty and boarded up the canal was silent save for one lone laundry line flapping in the light breeze. Nonetheless, I wanted to avoid being seen. People would think I was breaking into a historic building and causing yet more damage to the city of Venice. They would never be...

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“Enginestart_Test (A Neo Kosmo Story)” by Josh C

Submitted to Contest #101

Kyler typed in the command to the shuttle’s console and slumped back in the chair, expecting to hear the engines roar and reverberate around the colony ship’s hangar bay as they span up to 100% thrust capacity. He’d lost track of how many times he’d entered it in the last month in an endless series of diagnostics on the colony ship’s fleet of shuttles. Enginestart_test, enginestart_test, enginestart_test.

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“Broken as a Pane of Glass” by Josh C

Submitted to Contest #97

Thunder clapped, and Joel jumped as two aimless bolts of lightning lanced across the sky, illuminating the small apartment through the broken window. A gust blew through the hole in the glass, water dripping from two dagger-like shards hanging from the top of the frame. How long had it been like that? 3 days? A week? Joel quickly grabbed the piece of tarp he had been using as a temporary barrier and hung it in place, then walked over to the fridge. On the sea of judgmental, unchecked items on his to-do list, he found it....

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“No Way Back (A Neo Kosmo Story)” by Josh C

Submitted to Contest #94

Luis stared at the Earth in the far distance, little more than a blue and green marble floating in the pitch black of space, perpetually spinning. He gazed unblinking, alone as the planet slowly but surely vanished from his view. When the Neo Kosmo had first launched there would have been crowds watching, entranced, but the once busy viewing decks now stood silent and empty. “Luis,” a voice called over hi...

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“Drops of Hope (A Neo Kosmo Story)” by Josh C

Submitted to Contest #90

Squalor. That was the only way Cairo could describe the scene. Even at 11 years old it was apparent. Far from the gorgeous green fields and full, flowing rivers that had been promised, his family had arrived to a barren plain, skulking grey skies, and the only view an enormous concrete wall separating them from the European Federation of States.“Can you watch your brother please? Go meet your father, he should be coming home any moment.” Cairo’s mother called from the entrance of the temporary prefab shelter, one hand on...

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“Only a Change of Scenery (A Neo Kosmo Story)” by Josh C

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #86

Jenna opened her eyes to a small blurry, display blinking in front of her. Cold air swirled around her face and rays of red light jumped through licks of mist in the claustrophobic cryo-pod. The frigid air stung her nostrils and caused shudders along her body. Each twitch of a muscle added a new sensation as another synapse connected, her body slowly coming back online after 500 years of deep, dreamless, cryogenic sleep....

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“Our Marriage for the Kingdom” by Josh C

Submitted to Contest #81

Katarina stared at the heavy wooden gaol door and adjusted the crown on her head before patting down her elaborate dress. One of her soldiers fetched the keys and she traced the dark stains on the wood with her eyes, spying the rusting bolts on the frame. Behind this very same door countless prisoners, mostly peasants, had wasted away. This cell had probably never held such a distinguished prisoner as the current occupan...

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“The House of Seth” by Josh C

Submitted to Contest #79

It was 2 years to the day that I cut contact with my mum. In my defence, it’s kind of hard to have a relationship with a mum whose friends want you to get smote from the face of the earth by a wack job cult leader with bad hair. A cult leader who literally hasn’t done anything notable in their entire lives, yet somehow has such a big following that we can only hope they don’t go into politics. And yet a l...

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“A One Way Ticket on the Neo Kosmo (A Neo Kosmo Story)” by Josh C

Submitted to Contest #75

Roland stepped forward, shouting into the throng of people trundling past as he stood beneath the kaleidoscope of neon shop lights that filled the Central London Shopping Centre. “Step right up! New opportunities, new horizons, a whole new life awaits! 34 days until the Neo Kosmo departs to Lamperi Gi, the first habitable exoplanet, and spaces are available!” A few faces turned from amids...

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“Mince Pies by Firelight” by Josh C

Submitted to Contest #71

I could tell mum was trying not to cry again, even with the mask over her mouth and nose. Her eyes were wet, and she was blinking hard. She did that a lot this Christmas. For a second she stared at the oversized fake pine tree in the shopping centre, surrounded by equally fake presents, watching the man dressed as Santa listen to children shout from 6 feet away. Santa was wearing a mask too. I knew what mum was thinking ...

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“You Do Not Get Three Wishes” by Josh C

Submitted to Contest #61

It was over when I found out she had been unfaithful. I came upon them together - her and that bastard Samual Granger. That should have been the end of it. I should have burned the pictures, threw away the keepsakes and changed my number, putting the whole thing out of my mind, but I didn’t. In my bed, lying in the dark, my mind was running over everything. She said it was an accident that only happened once. But every unanswered call, every time she said she was working late, every friend she hung out with was re...

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“Offline” by Josh C

Submitted to Contest #58

Hughes looked out of the cockpit as they exited hyperspace, the planet popping into view ahead of them. Planet 52ABX-32QJ was a desert planet. He slumped in his chair. On joining up as a deckhand on the deep-space courier he had a very different idea of his future; one of finding new planets that would bear the future of the human race, discovering beautiful all-female alien species and fighting off vicious, savage bugs ...

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“Summer at 2AM” by Josh C

Submitted to Contest #53

I realised my playlist had finished and I had yet to start a new one. Had I been quicker, I might have missed the ring of a bell, indicating a new message. I frowned, it wasn’t from social media. Cycling tabs on my computer showed me it had come from the company instant messaging system...but who was working at 2AM? Aside from me that is, but I’m strange. Listening to music and talking to friends on Insta...

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“Supernova” by Josh C

Submitted to Contest #49

They gathered in silence, lost in their own thoughts in the observation deck of the research station, Jupiter visible through the windows as if hanging against the starlit sky. From their station the gas giant’s red, brown and orange storms looked frozen in time, even though they all knew that the storms were raging at hundreds of miles per hour. James broke the uncomfortable silence with the words he was sure all the sc...

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“Partially Cloudy” by Josh C

Submitted to Contest #47

Tomorrow will be a better day. You say this to yourself while looking out of the living room window. Despite the forecast saying it would be blue skies today, it is now raining a steady gray drizzle that casts everything in a faded, drab light. You shake your head and collapse onto the single sofa, maybe pouring a glass of wine first, and try to speed up the last few hours of the day by flicking through the television ch...

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Author bio

All my Neo Kosmo stories are being continued on Wattpad, please join me over there if you want to read more of these: https://www.wattpad.com/1129609145-a-one-way-ticket-on-the-neo-kosmo Otherwise I am pretty much finished with reedsy prompts for now, I simply don't have time. Fiction enthusiast, content writer and travel professional currently juggling several jobs and a newborn so if I seem a little inactive... I'm currently writing something of an anthology based around the Neo Kosmo - Earth's first colony ship - exploring the untold stories of the everyday people. Each one is stand-alone, but if you want to read them all in chronological order the stories go as follows: - A One Way Ticket on the Neo Kosmo - Drops of Hope - No Way Back - Only a Change of Scenery (Shortlisted) -Enginestart_Test So if you like one of those, check out the others. With luck I hope to have about 12 stories in the series. https://aworldonapage.wordpress.com Instagram: @aworldonapage

Shortlisted 1 story ⭐️

Contest #86

Only a Change of Scenery (A Neo Kosmo Story) – read story