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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#115: Connection Lost

It’s hard to imagine our lives without the constant presence of social media: it's a place to mingle, a source of news (however unreliable), and a form of entertainment. The jury’s still out on whether this omnipresence is good or bad, but what’s undeniable is that when a social media giant like Facebook goes down, as it did earlier this week, many of us feel as if we’re cut off from something. Taking inspiration from the recent blackout, the prompts for this week’s contest are all about connections, and what happens when they’re broken.

This week's prompts

One moment your character is talking on the phone with a friend, and the next, the connection is lost. Write a story about what follows.

Thriller and Suspense – 42 stories

Set your story in a town disconnected from the rest of the world.

Dystopian – 36 stories

Write about a character who feels like they're cut off from something.

Angst – 54 stories

Start or end your story with a character scrolling (or doomscrolling) through social media.

Adults – 14 stories

Write a story where a device goes haywire.

Science Fiction – 29 stories

Stories

“Jacob’s Well” by E.T. Little

Submitted to Contest #115

The air is still, the sea is like glass, the fishing boats are all back at port, the fuel lines for the lamps are closed, everyone is in their homes, and the tripwires are ready. I closed my front door and the shutters on my porch windows. I worked my way over to the kitchen where I saw my neighbor give a questioning thumbs up. I gave a thumbs up back and received a nod in return. I closed the wooden shudders on my kitchen window as he did, also making sure the faucet was off. I turned the gas lamp off on the windowsil...

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“Georgia's Hills” by Julie Roten

Submitted to Contest #115

“That’s the Nights went out in Georgia, muhhhmm, blahh, hummh, that’s the night that they hung an innocent man”. Mary Beth couldn’t recall all the words to that classic song, so she kept repeating the words she did know, and blahh blahhing though the rest of it. She was trying to determine if she liked Reba McEntire’s version better, or whatever the name of the artist that sang it before, her was it maybe Vicky? She wasn’t sure of any of those answers, and she recalled how she would have solved this dilemma in the past. She would have pulled...

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“Hi, Facebook friends!” by Mark Nero

Submitted to Contest #115

Hi, Facebook friends!This is my last post for a while. If not forever…I’m in a beautiful town in central Italy but I’m not going to tell its name, because I don’t want to be found. Actually, I’m saying goodbye to the old me… The cynical me… The don’t believe anything or feel anything me.3 days earlier…After a breakup with my girlfriend, I decided to head to Italy to clear my mind and regather myself. I was born in Sydney and my parents are Italian, but I always thought that this was the birthplace of my soul. Especially the region of Abruzzo...

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“The Cabin” by Lin Darroe

Submitted to Contest #115

The Cabin The train whistle blows and the noisy train slowly grinds to a stop. I awake and rub my eyes and glance out the window . The town of Oasis is just as I had pictured . Empty , desolate , and depressing . The only things missing are tumbleweeds and sand. My phone is in my pocket. I pull it out and look . No bars . No surprise there . There were two other passengers . An older man with glasses held together with tape, an old overcoat draped over faded jeans and a young girl with a pink pix...

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“The Alliance Register” by Donald King

Submitted to Contest #115

Small town newspapers are a great source for finding characters to write about. The following is a fictional conversation from 2019 with a person who appeared in the Alliance Register in 2021, a weekly publication from western Nebraska. Hi. My name is Daniel Jacobs and I live at the end of the earth. I know, most people figure the end of the earth would be on some spit of land sticking out into the ocean, or at the north pole or something, but on a ball, anywhere can be the beginning or the end. And it just so happens that where I live is ...

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“Danny” by Evynlee McDougal

Submitted to Contest #115

“Come on, Andie. You couldn’t have done this.” My gaze started at his black leather shoes, up his smart grey suit, and finally, we locked eyes. So tall, it put a crook in my neck. If you cut down a tree in the forest, would Principal Leary be around to hear it? I shrugged. “If that’s what he said he saw, then that’s what he saw.” Almost a whisper. He let out the sigh he’d been holding in the entire hour. “Andie… this isn’t you. I’m on your side. Tell me what happened.” I’d told my story enough times. But I told ...

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“Cut the Cord” by Elaine St. Anne

Submitted to Contest #115

The only light is a silver gleam at the bottom of the closet door. Otherwise, there is only blackness, deep and dark as the interior of a mountain cave. I hide in the closet because the monster is not in the closet nor is it under the bed. It is sitting on the edge of my bed humming a tuneless melody that worms it way into into my head. If I could open the door, I would see my laptop stuffed in the trashcan that sits by my desk. If I could get to the laptop, I could wire for help. That is if she has not figured out how to block all my ...

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“The Hare-Raising Adventures of Non-Essential Jeff of Rhode Island” by Michael Shaw

Submitted to Contest #115

Jeff lumbered into the kitchen, opened the fridge, grabbed the plastic milk jug, unscrewed its cap, and took a deep swig. If Alison had seen, he'd never hear the end. But she hadn't. Alison wasn't home; hadn't been since the stay-at-home order. Unlike Jeff, a tired, middle-tier analyst, Alison had been considered essential. Jeff had not only been deemed non-essential, but his boss had determined that he was, in fact, wholly expendable. So, he'd been expended. Essential Alison—a lawyer who practiced, well, some sort of law that Jeff ...

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“Even Offline, the Clock Will Keep Ticking” by Jacob Hare

Submitted to Contest #115

Tick, tock, tick, tock Time keeps flying by, and I get no messages. It’s funny that people always promise things and never seem to deliver. Ever since I got home from camp, barely anyone has even tried to reach out to me, and I always have to reach out to them. It’s hard to admit, but it honestly bothers me how I have to initiate those conversations. If I do decide to wait for the other person, nothing ever comes. Then, there are just some people who never even respond in the first place. For example, Kieran told me that we’d keep ...

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“Disconnected ” by Millie Kemp

Submitted to Contest #115

My alarm goes off. I get up. I move with numb legs to the bathroom to get ready. I get dressed. I eat. All part of my daily routine. It’s the same, every day. I no longer feel anything. “Ugh, I’m going to be late again!” I said to my mom as I grabbed my waffle and my backpack on my way to the door. “Maia, you really need to start getting up earlier!” my mom yelled back to me, exasperated with my tardy attendance. I had been late the past four days and was about to be late yet again. “Yes, I remember from the last ten times you told me, th...

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“More Than a Race” by Kathy Philpott

Submitted to Contest #115

Kathy Philpott philpott.kathy@yahoo.com More Than a Race Victor walked the track for several hours, noticing any unusual curve or change that could affect his performance. The surface of the track is less smooth than last year. The tire grip will be affected. Given the weather conditions and his spot on the grid, the race will be complicated. Last year at this venue, the skies were clear, and the track had not been resurfaced. Of course, last year was the first year with Covid restrictions, so nothing felt familiar. This year, Victor's c...

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“The Voice” by Vincent Cruz

Submitted to Contest #115

CW: Drug use.There is nothing worth looking at. It’s just a lot of pictures of birthday parties and cans of beer, nature scenes, and people whom I don’t really know. My finger is flicking the endless images up into the folds of my phone, where I imagine them going on forever like the opening to Star Wars. My mind is in a state of excited dullness. Consumed by the hole of the endless scroll. It’s after noon and I still haven’t heard from James. I’m sweeping up crumbs on the kitchen floor into a corner, there's all this dog hair too. All ...

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“Connection Lost” by Rob Ryter

Submitted to Contest #115

Connection LostFrances doesn’t answer her phone any more. It’ll just ring out. So I don’t call. Connection lost. She’s still in my contacts. I can’t bring myself to delete her. She’ll always be there in my memory. So she stays in my phone’s memory.Cancer took her. Aggressive, metastasised, spread everywhere. She was thirty-two. We used to talk while she was on chemo, then she graduated to radiotherapy and we there weren’t many of those precious calls left. They cut bits off her, trying to help. Her breasts, then her internal baby-making...

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“A Hero for the Night” by Audrey Mallin

Submitted to Contest #115

My heartbeat rang loud in my ears as silence filled the other end of the line. I pulled my phone back from my ear and saw that the connection had been lost due to a lack of service. Tears welled in my eyes as I started to panic. What was I going to do? I held my phone up to the sky in a desperate attempt to pick up a signal. I scoffed at myself. This is what all of the desolate characters abandoned in the middle of nowhere would do in the movies. I was better than this. I knew waving my phone in the air would only be in vain. Yet, I still fo...

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“Dreaming in reverse” by F.O. Morier

Submitted to Contest #115

She remembered the day they moved into that house very well. Not a grand or splendid house, but well enough to make it a home. She could not believe how happy she was. Just married, a ring on her finger. A simple model, but its beauty lay in its simplicity. Here, in this house, they would reach the height of romantic felicity. The house would never become a home, it became haunted very soon and civilization came to end. Her husband was away all day and even nights. He assured her that everything he did was on her account. Society strip...

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$250

Prize money

175

Contest entries

118

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Oct 15, 2021 EST

Won by Alex Sultan 🏆

Title: 28 Letters

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

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