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Follow a character who’s looking for someone or something.

Posted in Character on Nov 29, 2024

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✍️ 55 stories

Mistside

Submitted to Contest #279

She stood in front of her mirror. Her small build made her seem much younger than what she was. Her eyes followed the curves of her body down to her knees. The invisible hands that she imagined caressing each dip, showed her the intensity of her imagination.After dressing, Kara went to her easel. She attached her apron to her waist and she gathered her brushes and paints accordingly. She slowly looked at her paintings that covered the walls around her. She expressed different moods just with her face."I’m not quite sure what I’d like to pain...

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Ballad of the Gambler

Submitted to Contest #279

The following is one of several songs of unknown exact origin that circulated from person to person through the American Frontier about one of many long forgotten, some say even fabled, folks of the region's unruly past.The heat beats on without regard for prayers of escapeFrom those who gives up or has all taken by desperate hands.Yet one soul pays no mind, a numb, boiling shape. They just march on without end, drifting through desert sands. Where his destination lies is where that where is lying. For he goes long ways alone,...

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The End of Days

Submitted to Contest #279

Q: When will the world end?A: Sooner than you think. The worst part about the end of the world was how suddenly it happened. The end didn’t come the way most people expected- a slow, painful death to climate change or nuclear war or any other long-lasting issues. The end of the world was out of everyone’s control, coming impulsively and devastatingly. One day the world functioned as it had for millennia and the next it’d gone kablooie.  No psychics (not even the highly-rated ones), no AI supercomputers; no one and nothing saw it beforeh...

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Off-Road Adventure

Submitted to Contest #279

             It started out as a pleasant jaunt along Route 50 East to Maryland’s coastline on the Atlantic Ocean.  Our trip began at 6 am to give us plenty of time to bask in the sun of Ocean City and later frolic in the waves–perhaps spotting a few dolphins or whales romping in the surf.        We planned to stop in one of the boardwalk eateries for a little pizza and adult beverages before heading back to our bed and breakfast in ...

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Fragments of Memory

Submitted to Contest #279

Reva paused in the kitchen doorway, a hand on her hip and a slight frown creasing her forehead. She stood there, the late afternoon sunlight streaming through the window over the sink, highlighting the swirling dust motes in the air. Her gaze swept the room, her eyes flicking from the fridge to the countertops, from the cabinets to the cluttered kitchen table. "What was I looking for?" she muttered, her voice soft but tinged with frustration. It had been happening more often lately—a sense of purpose leading her somewhere, only to dissipate ...

12 likes 3 comments 3
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Eyes Like Hers

Submitted to Contest #279

I’ve heard it said that we are born looking for someone looking for us. Makes sense, right? It’s usually, at the very least, our mother who is looking for us, waiting to see who was growing inside of her all of those months. From that moment of birth on, our eyes are always searching the earth, the horizon, looking for someone who is looking for us. That was certainly true of me. I was born looking for someone looking for me. I must have known from inside the womb that my mother didn’t want me. Can an unbor...

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Once Upon A Time in the Watford Gap

Submitted to Contest #279

            ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WATFORD GAPArmitage left Towcester behind, and the empty centre of England opened itself to him. It was a fine evening. On his left the sky was still aflame, scored with parallel bands of blue and yellow and red. It was if the light had been refracted through a giant spectroscope. Then the yellow smudged the red and they all fell down the sky together until nothing was left but a variegated blue, and a red aureole of fire on the far horizon. Then ...

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Fourth Gear

Submitted to Contest #279

We were standing there at the open garage bay, studying her car. Cars and trucks were whizzing past on the interstate behind us, just on the other side of the service road. The mechanic wiped his greasy hands on a handkerchief as he glanced at the car's tags. "Your transmission won't make it back to Virginia." He shoved the hood down. The car shuddered. "I can work on it first thing Monday. You'll be on your way home Tuesday." "We're headed to Montreal," I said.If it had been my car and a different trip, I would have made some joke, sold the...

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Shadows Left Behind

Submitted to Contest #279

Beneath the endless stretch of dark, looming clouds, the world served as but a facade. A lifeless imitation, where mechanical humming drowned all that could be perceived as "living". The sky itself seemed incapable of breathing, its oppressive nature heavy, weighing on the world below in a way that felt eerily familiar though she did not know why.  Despite it all, Eira continued to exist in the silence: the empty world, where nothing seemed real, save for the ever-looming presence of the Council and a vague sense of longing—almost as if...

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Jason

Submitted to Contest #279

Jason An eerie glow eminated from nowhere, and everywhere. Every molecule of the air shimmered with it. Jason, a seasoned meteorologist, witnessed many strange atmospheric conditions, but never anything like this. His thoughts swirled as much as the snow, blowing in ever changing patterns across the great prairie. “What am I doing out here? Why did I come out here looking for Paulie? How could I leave my wife, my family? Why did you take off the way you did? And the note! What’s up with that?” All these questions flew through his head a...

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Looking for Lily

Submitted to Contest #279

Embrace the UnknownLooking for Lily“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” Oscar Wilde“It’s no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person then.”Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland      Boots thundering, Lily rolls face first into the gutter. She wants to throw a tantrum to suck her thumb but can't, her fist is in her mouth to stop the scream coming out.      “Get her off the road, HURRY.”      Lily’s is curl...

9 likes 2 comments 2
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Henry's Average Day

Submitted to Contest #279

Henry was average in almost every measure of the word.He worked in a company that—like himself—was totally and completely ordinary. Nothing he did on a day-to-day basis mattered. And that was just the way he liked.All that changed, however, when he showed up to his office one day. He’d been there for a few hours at this point, mindlessly typing away at his keyboard, when a thought occurred to him. Why had it been so quiet?Now, usually, he was the first one to the office and quickly settled into his desk. He would close the door and get lost ...

8 likes 2 comments 2
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The Three-Way Curse

Submitted to Contest #279

The moment I walked into the room, all conversation stopped. A hundred eyes turned toward me as if I’d crashed a funeral in a clown suit. “It’s you again!” said a man in a tattered suit, clutching his chest as if he were about to faint. I froze, gripping the doorknob like it was my lifeline. “Me, sorry? I was looking for my fiancé, John. Have you seen him?” I stammered. That’s when a woman in a ballgown, half-eaten by moths, wagged a finger at me. “Don’t play coy, ghosty!” she snapped. “Just cross over already. You’re causing a draught.” ...

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The Labyrinth

Submitted to Contest #279

I lost my heart. It didn’t vanish suddenly. If it had, it might have been easier to find- like my mind too, which I always rediscover in some drawer. But no, I lost it slowly and imperceptibly. All our hearts shine- green for hope, yellow for joy, and red for love. Long time ago, mine glowed neon red, covering my entire being. Some gazed with joy, and those with a hole where their heart should be, with envy. In fact, trying to fill other people’s voids, I lost my own heart. And it worked. In my presence, all hearts began to glow. Some people...

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Red Flags

Submitted to Contest #279

Five years. Five long years of searching led to this moment. Just one click, one simple button press, and the search would be over. She had been dreaming of this moment for so many years, but now that it’s here, she feels strangely hesitant. What if the time had been too long and it was in vain, or worse, what if it just led to rejection? It had been six years since they last spoke, six years since she vanished from the life of one of the only people she felt understood her.After all, she was the one who disappeared, not them. She was the on...

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