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Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2023
TW: the occasional fuck, cursing that is, not the other : ) The battlefield lay before General Matrick, etched in ink, stained by blood, fraying at its singed edges. Tapping a wooden infantryman’s head, he sighed. A simple task to slide it across the parchment landscape, towards Tormun's mountains, through that godforsaken Breach, and into their world. A little push would do it, and yet those figurines grew heavier with every passing day. Perhaps it was age? Or the wicked cold seeping bone deep? Or dare he even think it: that he’d lost the...
Submitted to Contest #220
Kal tugged his sodden patched cloak over Esmae's shivering shoulders and rubbed her back. Little good it would do in this weather, but what's a brother to do? He felt the fool, promising so much he couldn't give. Reckoned mother was right - he truly was less than nothing. Although she was as much his mother as he was the Emperor of Everywhere.Thunder rumbled and lightning exploded, like the gods were moving furniture around, then thought divine redecorating was a bust and burnt the armoire instead. Kal couldn't help but think that the d...
Submitted to Contest #218
Discorded drunken music swaggered up from the city of flapping canvas below. Tuneless yet merry lutes, belched singing and half hearted cheering, all battling for dominance over the melee of whetstone and anvil. What a racket it made. Never been a night different though, not to Jax's memory anyway. Same patriotic songs, same heroic stories, same bloody business needed doing come morn'. Only thing ever changed was the number of the dead. And that only traveled one road. Pointless the lot of it.Something has to change.Blowing out a smoking bre...
Submitted to Contest #215
TW: Language, sexual violence, child suffering, suicide, all things horrific.“Have you seen this boy?” The woman behind the chained door shook her head at the creased photograph.“He’s six here," Anna urged, "but he's closer to eight now.”“Ain't seen him. Sorry. Truly I am,” The woman hung her head closing the door.Anna had almost gotten used to it, the slamming doors, the constant barrage of no’s, dejected looks momentarily sharing her horror, then straight back to daily life with the squeak of a hinge and the click of a lock. That's just wh...
Submitted to Contest #214
Ever had a friend that didn't deserve the title? You know, the kind that borrows your favourite stonewashed jeans and returns them stained, or worse, torn, then just shrugs. The type of bitch that would gut punch you at a party just to get everybody laughing. Yeah, I hear ya, bully suits better than friend, but sometimes there's no escaping either. That's Barbara. Fiery, mouthy, shows up when least expected, Barbara. I met her not long after finishing primary school. All the other girls from my class and street were away on their sun...
Submitted to Contest #213
Curse the lot of them! What have I ever done to deserve this?Three days hard trek up a snow packed mountain trail with naught but a two toothed yokel to guide him, and for what? Was he, Faustus Flusterbuss, not the most perfect apprentice any Mage could ask for? Had he not always seen to his duties and those of his beloved Master Arkas above all else? It had to be the fault of that blasted Ardle, and worse yet, that cherub-faced jumped-up apprentice, Jestinia. They would get their just desserts, he would make sure of it.Faustus' grip tighten...
Shortlisted for Contest #212 ⭐️
John knew it was illegal, but that didn't hinder the temptation. For weeks it sat there, its unread secrets wanting to escape its crinkled manila prison. No one in the local shop or cafe ever heard of Ellie-Mae MacIntyre, never mind living at this address. That only intensified the handwritten letter's draw. Its cursive script, beautiful, elegantly old school, as if it came from the past. Who even sends letters anymore? So alluring, so tempting, so…He couldn't take it any more, that damned letter lurked on his console table for long eno...
Submitted to Contest #209
Ardle Henbrook tugged the sleeves of his faded blue ceremonial robe, hoping to entice the aged fabric to cover his wrists. Decades had passed since he last donned the damned thing and too many pies, ale, and ale pies were making it impossible to tie. Grunting, he slumped into the jostling carriage's padded seats and wrapped his arms about himself. Little good it did against the chill, but if there was one thing Ardle hated more than carriage rides to Nowhere, it was the cold. “You ok sir? You haven't sat still since we left Somewhere, a...
Submitted to Contest #208
Fantasy, stories and tall tales, none of it is to be believed. Remember that boy. It's all lies.The words of Grant's father circled his mind like a vulture gnawing away at his confidence. Had he let his grandfather's bedtime stories rot his mind? Maybe. Was he trapped in a childish mindset? Probably. But what harm could come of it? He unrolled the auction house's catalogue one more time, his thumb still lodged in the desired page. Lot number 187: An original brown 1904 Steiff teddy bear, previously owned by…Grant only ever knew him by the na...
Submitted to Contest #207
“Cut!” The lights above the entrances stay lit, bleeding their artificial red warning into the synthetic gloom beyond the stage. Still live, just as planned. Looking up from the presenter's desk, I shuffle papers filled with our masters' practiced lies into a neat pile, just as I have done for thirty two years. Tonight will be my last. My trembling hands drift over the laminated circular tabletop as I gather my nerves. So much of my life spent here reading the nightly “news”, so many "truths" told, so many lives ruined.“I said...
Submitted to Contest #206
How did I get here? The question sounds new to my swirling fractured mind, yet I know I've asked it before. I must have. But how many times? Like memory, time has little to no stability in this place of shifting darkness, it flows as freely as the warm liquid that binds me. I can hear my captors through the constant, unending drumming. Is its purpose to torture me? Perhaps, but for what? What could I have done or know that I could possibly deserve this?They laugh, no doubt mocking my cramped confinement, the sound crashes over my head l...
This is a true story.Ever been scared of the weather? Yeah, sounds stupid doesn't it? And I'm not talking about crashing thunder that rumbles mountains, or hurricane winds that take you to Oz. No, I'm talking about the start of summer, blue sky dotted with delightful fluffy clouds and a gentle breeze on your face type weather. What some might even call perfect. Well between the ages of thirteen and fifteen it scared the daylights right out of me.Probably best to start in the middle right?There I was ready for a night out at the local bowling...
Submitted to Contest #205
***TRIGGER WARNING*** Details of abuse, rape and child lose.The cut-throat razor barely glistens anymore. Years of slicing, scraping and shaping have gradually worn it down. Made it obsolete. Its bluntness won't deter me though, I'll just have to cut a little harder.I turn it in my hand, a museum clerk appraising a lost relic, a murderer savouring the moment, a lover lost in loneliness. Your initials are almost worn from the walnut handle. I had it engraved specially, just for you, gold leafed, just for you. Everything just for you. Everythi...
Shortlisted for Contest #204 ⭐️
If all has gone to plan, the name of Joseph Finch should mean nothing to the world. But if it does, firstly, I apologise for what I had to do.Peculiar it may seem for this tale be recounted almost two hundred years after the fact, but those were the instructions given to me by the Stranger.It began in the winter of 1826.The banshee wind shrieked across the great barren plains, bringing a ghostly chill from the high places to torment the shutters and shingles of Redemption. Huddling under several blankets and furs, rocking by a meager log fir...
Submitted to Contest #203
*** WARNING: physical violence, bad language and drugs ***Paul's teeth wobbled, mouth flooding with salty wetness, eye throbbing hot, knuckles gashed, and stinging. The urge to stop, to run, to cry, was almost overpowering, but it seemed every student of Saint Patrick's school had come to watch the brawl. What could he really do but continue, he had cast the first stone so to say. Spitting his fears into the gravel sports track, he squinted against the evening sun and raised his shaking battered fists."Come on then!" he shouted, forcing brav...
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