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Richard De Vries

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2025

Stories (7)

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4 Followers

13 Following

7 Stories

139 karma pts

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When the silence breaks

Richard De Vries

Submitted to Contest #301

It was raining heavily when Olivia Hart drove her car on a twisted mountain road. The bends were barely visible through the blur of black and lightning-laced silver. Her knuckles blanched bone-white against the steering wheel, trembling with a desperation that made her arms ache. Every heartbeat sounded like a war drum in her chest, overwhelming even the thunder that was ripping the sky open above her. The headlights slashed through the dark in thin, surgical cuts—precise beams of control in a night unraveling at the seams.Yet nothing—nothin...

11 likes

And for one night, the SOC ran this company. Not the boardroom.

Richard De Vries

Submitted to Contest #298

The hum of workstations and servers sounded like a low rumble in the brightly lit Security Operation Center. Screens lit the room with shifting shades of red and blue, each flash another potential threat. In the center of it all was Samir Khan, SOC Manager for AeroLink Global, his jaw clenched, heart pounding, gaze locked on an alert that had just breached every layer of defense.A zero-day exploit—surgically precise and terrifyingly intelligent—slithered through their systems like a venomous serpent in the dark. It hadn’t just bypassed firew...

10 likes

The one language I never understood

Richard De Vries

Submitted to Contest #296

I spend most days’ lunch breaks in silence—a pulsing, heavy silence that wraps around me like armor and solitude. The noise of others recedes to a far-off hum, to a world I can only observe and never touch. It is like viewing life through a pane of glass. I don’t sit alone because I prefer it that way but because I don’t understand how to enter that world. My silence is not empty—it is filled with words that I do not know how to speak and emotions that I am too scared to express. It’s the sound of needing to be part of and not knowing how. I...

13 likes

Seven Days of Doubt

Richard De Vries

Submitted to Contest #294

Weekly writing prompts - enter the world's largest writing contest. The words blared from his screen, their heaviness bearing down on his chest like an anvil. The subject line glared in his inbox, an unspoken taunt challenging him to open it. Alan breathed shakily, his heart thudding in his ears. His fingers quivered over the mouse before he clicked at last. Five new prompts. Seven days to write something. Seven days to battle his doubts, wrestle with every word, and pray that his best would be sufficient.The ritual was always the same, thou...

23 likes

The Night the Engines Died

Richard De Vries

Submitted to Contest #293

The passengers of Flight 227 had just completed their meal. The cabin buzzed quietly with the clinking of silverware, an intermittent laugh, and the faint sound of rustling newspapers—ordinary, routine sounds that masked behind the fragile facade of safety the horror that loomed just beyond. A stewardess laughed at a joke told by a passenger. A man in first class swirled his wine, enjoying the final sip.Suddenly, the intercom crackled to life, its static sibilant as a snake wrapping its way around the unwitting passengers. Then the voice—cal...

15 likes

The Reset

Richard De Vries

It began quietly, almost without notice, like a problem with eyesight or a trick of a tired mind. Colors became slightly less bright, and reds and blues faded into lighter, sickly tones, as if the world was losing its brightness. At first, people ignored it—maybe the autumn sun was less strong this year, or maybe their eyes were just getting used to the shorter days.Then, as the days drew closer to the election, the change became visible. The skies did not just lose their blueness; they grew dark and oppressively dense, like a great blanket ...

1 like

An intoxicating invitation

Richard De Vries

Submitted to Contest #290

Romeo had observed her for weeks, each fleeting second leaving an imprint upon his mind as the creases of an unwritten sonnet. Julia, she was poetry, an intoxicating refrain repeating over and over in his mind. The way she flowed so effortlessly, the line of her fingertips tracing so gently over the spines of novels, finally landing upon one, the subtle tilt of lips lost in worlds of paper and dreams, it all enchanted him beyond reason.He knew the sound of her steps, the cadence of breathing when she lost herself in thoughts, the precise til...

12 likes