Menu

Prompts

Directory Contests Magazine FAQ

Apps

reedsymarketplace

Hire professionals for your project

reedsyblog

Advice, insights and news

reedsylearning

Online publishing courses

reedsylive

Free publishing webinars

reedsydiscovery

Launch your book in style

Bestseller Podcast Book Cover Art Success Stories

Tools

Book Promotion Sites Book Review Blogs Booktube Channel Guide Book Title Generator Character Name Generator Independent Publishers Literary Agents Literary Magazines Pen Name Generator Plot Generator Publishers Directory Short Story Ideas Writing Contests Writing Exercises Writing Scholarships

Menu

Prompts

Contests

Stories

Blog

Directory

Contests

Magazine

FAQ

Zachery Miller

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2023

Stories (5)

Comments

Library

6 Followers

6 Following

5 Stories

116 karma pts

?

... and I Watched You Go

Submitted to Contest #239

Slowly, stiffly, a bird passing through a cloud, reality grabbed at his unfettering mind. The wind from the open window wafted over him sweetly, its tender touch a lover’s gentle caress. His eyes were closed tight like sealed tombs, and he felt the dream begin to leak out. He saw green eyes, red hair, flames shimmering on the waves. A smile spread itself across his diffused face as the spring air carried him away. She slipped away in shades until the scene was black and cold. Slowly, stiffly, his eyes began to open. He was alone. The flame...

9 likes

The Green Thing

Submitted to Contest #220

“That shouldn’t be there,” Ben croaked through lips dry and cracked as the mud flats surrounding him. The dawn air was stagnant and carried with it a foul smell that Ben couldn’t place. At times it smelled of rotting flesh, others of truncated soil. Whatever it was, Ben was sick of it more than the neverending dead plains that housed him, and he already hated them more than he’d ever hated anything. The sky was bleak and the disturbed dust flew high, muting the newborn light and giving the rising sun a hazy quality. But amongst the various s...

11 likes

Purgatorial

Submitted to Contest #215

The creature sat in a huddled heap on the cold stone as it stared up at the sky. Rain beat down on it, dribbling down twisted wings and dripping from its blackening feathers to the soiled floor beneath. The rain’s rhythm echoed like footsteps and the creature twitched and cringed at their fall. It was the sound of exile, of the blood of a brother spilt upon spoiled ground, of its father weeping. The water loosened the blood from the creature’s porcelain skin and it flowed with new life down the small drainage grate in the middle of the floor...

5 likes

I Think I Feel God (Or, At Least, His Hands Around My Neck)

Submitted to Contest #212

The grip tightens around my throat as I break the wax seal of the letter addressed to Kaya. That isn’t my name, nor is this my letter. It was delivered early this morning, I think, and I had fixated on it since its arrival. The alluring violet envelope, the onyx seal, Kaya written in a beautiful cursive hand. No return address. “Open me! Open me!” it screamed. I just couldn’t resist it. Who could? Kaya was long dead so the letter would never be opened. Not without an interloper, a hunter, someone who takes what they want. A mystery can’t rem...

8 likes

Sand Castles

Submitted to Contest #210

Two weeks after the FISH descended from the sky, we went on our first family vacation. Before their arrival, the idea of going on holiday was a pipe dream; we never had the money and my parents never had the time. The aliens came promising salvation, an end to measly work, complete freedom under their stewardship, but those promises remained unfulfilled during those interim days. The In-Between, we called it, the time between arrival and the implementation of 'paradise.' My parents took them at their word, however, and they brought us to the...

18 likes