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Warren Flynn

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Apr, 2025

Stories (15)

Comments

Library

31 Followers

53 Following

15 Stories

380 karma pts

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The Promise

Warren Flynn

Submitted to Contest #324

They met at the trailhead on a Tuesday in March when the lot was still empty. David signed the log at 6:42. It was a remote trail David had never trekked before. Three minutes later a man stepped beside him and smiled like he had decided to be spontaneous. “Solo?” the man asked, studying the sun-faded map. “Yeah,” David said. “Same. Mind if I tag along for a bit? I’m Craig.” David hesitated, then nodded. “David.” They fell into an easy cadence. Work they did not love. Places they meant to visit. Divorce. They traded the kinds of facts strang...

13 likes

Couch potato

Warren Flynn

Submitted to Contest #323

His ex-wife, Denise, took everything including most of the cookware. Except for one sheet pan which is how this all started.Marcus started with a single baked potato every evening. No butter, no sour cream or salt. He appreciated the ritual of consistency in a life that had become unmoored after the divorce."Potatoes are perfect divorce food," he told his sister when she visited that first month. "Filling, cheap and you can't mess them up."She'd laughed, but he'd been serious. In a world where his wife had left, his job had downsized him int...

19 likes

The Good-ish Samaritan

Warren Flynn

Submitted to Contest #322

Lena found the wallet on the F train platform, wedged between a MetroCard machine and a trash can that smelled like hot garbage and old coffee.She picked it up without thinking. Brown leather, worn soft at the corners. Heavy. Her first thought, the one that arrived before she could stop it: rent money.Then: No. Find the owner.She opened it. Driver's license behind scratched plastic. Marcus Chen, 34, address in Sunset Park. The photo showed a man with tired eyes and the ghost of a smile. Behind the license: three credit cards, a library card,...

10 likes

The View from the Top

Warren Flynn

Submitted to Contest #322

The trophy was heavier than Maya expected.She stood alone in the hotel ballroom, everyone else having filtered out to the after-party three floors up. The bass line throbbed through the ceiling. Someone laughed a champagne-soaked shriek of celebration she’d imagined making herself.Maya set the award on the white tablecloth. Journalist of the Year. The engraving caught the light from the chandeliers, throwing her name across the empty chairs in fractured gold.She thought of Theresa Vance.Sixty-three. Worked at the chemical plant for forty-one...

9 likes

The Cartography of Wishes

Warren Flynn

Submitted to Contest #320

The Cartography of WishesThea found the spool on Tuesday morning, tucked between a crack in the floorboards of her grandmother's attic. Red thread, impossibly bright against the dust-gray wood. The house had been empty for eleven months since Gran's passing, but something about early autumn had finally pulled Thea back to clear it out.She almost missed it while sorting through boxes of old photographs and Christmas ornaments. But as sunlight angled through the single round window, it caught the thread like a signal fire.When she picked it up...

12 likes

Late Bloom

Warren Flynn

Submitted to Contest #313

The diner was nearly empty, save for the soft clatter of cutlery in the kitchen and the occasional hiss of something meeting a grill. Rain tapped steadily against the windows, tracing lazy, downward paths like half-formed regrets. A neon sign from the gas station across the street pulsed red and blue against the glass, washing their booth in flickering hues.Claire wrapped both hands around her coffee mug, though her drink had long since cooled. The porcelain felt solid, grounded. She wasn’t cold—she just needed something to hold. Her fingers...

3 likes

Where Silence Screamed

Warren Flynn

Submitted to Contest #308

CW - very mild spice. The gravel crunched beneath the tires, a sound that dragged like sandpaper across glass. I gripped the door handle, knuckles white, not because I was afraid it would fly open, but because I needed something to hold onto. Something solid. The air in the car was thick with unspoken words, heavier than the summer heat pressing in from beyond the tinted windows.Mark, my husband, hummed off-key to a classic rock station, his fingers tapping a restless rhythm on the steering wheel. He'd suggested this trip. "Time to clear out...

5 likes

The Cost of Knowledge

Warren Flynn

Submitted to Contest #307

The familiar, dusty smell of old books always seemed to cling to Elara, like a second skin. It was a comforting scent, following her from the university's Special Collections library back to her tiny, book-stuffed apartment. It promised quiet discoveries, the kind that gently expanded your world, not the ones that rocked it to its core.But today, something was off. A faint, metallic tang, like old pennies left out in the rain, was mixed with the usual comforting scent. It pulled her toward the deepest, most forgotten corner of the archives, ...

14 likes

Swipe Right, Heart Left

Warren Flynn

Submitted to Contest #306

Tuesday, 7:17 PMDating App Message Denise: Hi Michelle, Thanks for matching. Hope you had a good long weekend!Tuesday, 7:25 PMDating App Message Michelle: Hey Denise! I did, thanks. Got some hiking in. How about you?Tuesday, 7:31 PMDating App Message Denise: Nice! Just chilled out, honestly. Needed the recharge. Your profile mentioned you're into photography? Any cool shots from the hike?Tuesday, 7:38 PMDating App Message Michelle: Definitely. Yeah, it's my main hobby. Got some decent mountain views, nothing too dramatic but always good to b...

12 likes

A Granola Bar

Warren Flynn

Submitted to Contest #305

Alice gripped the strap of her cross-body bag, the worn leather slick beneath her palm. Her sensible, grey shoes felt paper-thin against the cracked pavement. It rained that morning, leaving the world a weary gray. “Alright, Alice?” Officer Miller stood beside her, arms crossed. He looked like a refrigerator that had seen too much life. “Ready for the glamour of child services?”She forced a bright, useless smile.Inside, she was trembling. She’d spent the night memorizing her checklist, policy, what she was allowed to do and what she wasn’t. ...

18 likes

Subject: QUERY – The Widow's Reign (Adult Psychological Thriller, 117K).

Warren Flynn

Submitted to Contest #304

CW: Strong language, suicide, cyberbullying Arlene opened the next email. Subject, Query – Romantasy 120K words.One email down, 1117 to go.“I hope this isn’t another version of moody girl fucks a werewolf.” She said to nobody. Her assistant, Cam, looked up from his desk outside the glass wall. He raised one eyebrow like it was a well-practiced tic. "Was it?" he asked.Arlene didn’t answer. She clicked the email open. The salutation was promising—no “To Whom It May Concern,” no glittery gifs or bios written in the third person. Just a clean, d...

10 likes

Second Opinion

Warren Flynn

Submitted to Contest #303

Callan showed up at Clementine ten minutes early. He didn’t go in. Instead, he waited on the sidewalk. The evening air was humid and smelled of fresh asphalt. Experience had taught him that waiting out front—walking in together—helped settle nerves. At precisely 8:00, a taxi pulled up. Dr. Leclerc stepped out. The silk blouse and practical pants were gone, replaced by a blue-and-white jumpsuit. Silver hair, now loose, parted to one side. Makeup vivid but restrained. Silver earrings framed her face, catching what little light the evening had ...

8 likes

A Killer's Therapy Session

Warren Flynn

Submitted to Contest #303

The office smelled like cedar and something expensive—floral, but restrained. Callan sat on a low couch that felt deliberately soft. It was meant to disarm him. Across from him, she sat in a leather chair, legs crossed, a pen resting on a legal pad she hadn’t touched.Dr. Leclerc. Fifties, early sixties. It was impossible to tell. Silver hair pulled back into a clean pony. Cheekbones sharp enough to wound. She wore a bone-colored silk blouse, minimal jewelry, no wedding ring. Everything about her was composed, curated. And striking. Not in a ...

12 likes

Some Bonds Have No Words

Warren Flynn

Submitted to Contest #302

Some Bonds Have No WordsBy Warren FlynnBeckett escaped at 10:14 a.m., slipping past when Teresa, the human that cleaned up after his roommate, Callan, dropped her keys.She fumbled at the door, muttering in her other human language—the same words she used when she found hairballs under the couch. The moment it cracked open, he moved—low and fast, a whisker’s width ahead of her scuffed sneaker.She never saw him go.He trotted down the hallway without urgency. The carpet muted his steps. The scent of sharp cleaning-poison mixed with old dog-mark...

10 likes

This isn’t what I signed up for

Warren Flynn

Shortlisted for Contest #301 ⭐️

Dave knew he was in trouble the moment Melissa's car disappeared down the driveway. The silence that followed felt like the calm before a particularly vicious storm.“So,” he said, turning to face the two children who now regarded him with the collective suspicion of seasoned border agents. “What should we do today?”Blake, eleven, clutched his tablet like a shield. His eyes flicked to the windows, scanning for invisible threats, shoulders hunched in perpetual readiness. The kid had the survival instincts of a nervous rabbit and the demeanor o...

40 likes