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#149 Of Stranger Things

After its much-awaited release last week, the fourth season of Stranger Things has taken the world by storm. First aired in 2016, this television show stars a group of D&D-loving kids and unlikely heroes in a topsy-turvy world. Its creators took inspiration from many classic thrillers, and the show has in turn been influencing writers to write Stranger Things books.

Whether you’ve been swept up by this sensational show or not, I hope my Stranger Things-inspired prompts can propel you into a story of your own this week:

This week's prompts

Write about a character who is trying to convince others to play a game.

Kids – 19 stories

Start your story with the flickering of a light.

Kids – 96 stories

Write about two people who form a bond with each other through music.

Middle School – 45 stories

Set your story in a town that’s teetering on the edge of something dark, literally or metaphorically.

Dystopian – 50 stories

Write a story about an unlikely group (or pair) of friends.

Middle School – 43 stories

Stories

Snooze You Lose

PJ Aitken

Submitted to Contest #149

Jenny had enjoyed her first week of Dream Academy more than she expected. She was also surprised that none of her new friends had been here for very long so were all experiencing their first assignment at the same time. Their outfits were slightly too figure hugging due to being made from blue leathery elastic material. They kept being told it was “standard issue” but none of them could understand why. Jenny, Debbie, Danny, Tina and Dexter stood next to each other among the larger group slightly nervous about what was going to happen. The li...

25 likes

The Shadows Stare Back

Kay Border

Submitted to Contest #149

The overhead light flickered out. The man watching it trembled. Only two more lights. The inhuman noises from outside the ramshackle hut roared, as if in celebration. George Henwin shook the dead bulb gently, silently begging it to come back to him. "No, no, please!" It was no use; the bulb had been burning for 2 months, longer than George had expected. Ever since the world was plunged into chaos by the shadows, he had relied on his collection of half used bulbs to keep him safe from their shrieks and claws. The longer he lived, howe...

23 likes

Building A Dream

Wendy M

Submitted to Contest #149

It had been his first substantial commission, designing the Bedford Hills Hotel, over 40 years ago. Like a gigantic wedding cake: sixteen layers of pure delight, and now he owned a slice. The top slice; the icing on the cake. "With a cherry on," he thought. They had named it 'The Robert Barrington Suite'. He was so proud of his namesake. For the last 20 years, he was the principal architect, then senior partner in the most prestigious design and build company in Europe. Now, he deserved his retirement, his music...

22 likes

Pussycat Janks

Submitted to Contest #149

Justine Chase searches through the online musician listings hoping to strike gold. Against daunting odds, she hopes to find needles in a haystack in the form of instrumentalists who don’t have slacker-artist issues. She fantasizes about being the lead singer for a country-punk band.Although she's a first-year student in the MFA program at Long Beach State, her performance has thus far been lackluster. Thirty-five years old, Justine had an adventurous four years at UC Berkeley. She graduated from the English department with highest ...

21 likes

Seedling

EJ Lagerberg

Shortlisted for Contest #149 ⭐️

The light bulb flickered, humming to a dim glow in the sitting room of Symon Shevchenko’s farmhouse. He had refused to leave. He had lived in that house his entire life, born there, his father born there; he was too old, he told the mayor, to pick up and come to town with everyone else. What would he do there? He is farmer. He does not know how to live in a small apartment, surrounded by concrete. If the darkness decided to envelope him, so be it. He picked up a tattered copy of Gogol’s Dead Souls, put on his reading g...

20 likes

1 1 3

Alyssa Telgenhoff

Submitted to Contest #149

My town of Burning, South Carolina had two unspoken rules: go to church on Sunday and don't touch The Dead Tree. On a Halloween night, my gran revealed our tiny town’s local legend. My parents were at some party and she had been tasked with taking me trick o’ treating. We were out later than I was allowed to be and Gran grabbed my hand leading the way home. I was annoyed. I couldn’t see the beautiful colors of the crunchy leaves and my princess costume had turned more uncomfortable than cute. The tiara was too tight and my shoes too b...

20 likes

Nuts and Bolts

Tyler Kitchenman

Submitted to Contest #149

The screaming was so loud that the sound pushed through the summer symphony of lawnmowers and barking dogs like a tyrant set on ruining the day. A few children squealed nearby as they burst through a sprinkler stream. But there was no mistaking it. Claire was screaming in pain. Claire was screaming because she was dying. Summer was reaching a peak and would now plateau steadily with a consistent dole of eighty-degree temperatures. Pools were open, front yards were cut weekly, and the ice cream man was in full swing. Tyler was makin...

20 likes

Playing Dice With Doom

Submitted to Contest #149

Numb, entirely unaware of anything but the dying flames her mother’s funeral pyre, her eyes held the stare of flying sparks. Rose Fletcher, her mother’s lover held her hand. The older woman was trembling with emotion. Danielle finally broke Rose’s grip when her headache became a stream of vomit. “Do you want to stay with us tonight, Rose?” Lupita offered. “You shouldn’t be alone.” &...

20 likes

UKRAINE in the Time of Rusalki (So We Don't Forget)

Submitted to Contest #149

Ukraine in the Time of Rusalki(So We Don’t Forget)(The rusalka of the Ukrainian songs are derived from ancient magical incantations that were supposed to secure a rich harvest or attract a lover to a girl. More recent songs often have a love plot in which an abandoned girl is transformed into a poplar, a young wife is poisoned by her mother-in-law, or a young bride commits suicide to escape from a repugnant husband.)It’s June, the time of the year in which the rusalki were believed to be at their most dangerous. At this time, they were suppo...

20 likes

The Light Outside

Hamilton Briggs

Shortlisted for Contest #149 ⭐️

June 2020 A light flashed through the curtains of her bedroom. Alicia reached for the bathrobe in the chair next to her and pulled it around her. She knew she would find the old man standing at the window She padded quietly up the wood stairs so as not to alarm him. Alicia turned the door handle quickly. As she had expected, he stood at the window, pushing at the pane. “Jan,” she said, “stay away from the window, please.” He turned around to face her, then growled like a bear. He waved his arms as if fighting her off. Yet Alicia, ...

19 likes

The Return

Clay Harker

Submitted to Contest #149

The lights flickered again as if some unseen hand were signaling for help in Morse code."What in the name of Jesus and all his carpenter friends is that?" Michael Castellanos hollered down to the captain, who was making his way back from the deck to the flying bridge. He had been the first to spot it but felt he couldn't trust his eyes without getting a little closer. Castellanos raised the enormous GeoVid binoculars to his eyes, blinked a few times, and was again taken aback by what was approaching the port side of their vessel. ...

19 likes

Shadow Muse

Submitted to Contest #149

The only car they saw this far up the mountain skidded around the curve, drove directly at them, and lurched back into its lane. Its left headlight flickered like the twitchy eye of a madman. Adam held his foot over the brake in case it swerved again. As it gunned past them, little Lucy waved from the backseat of the van. The car’s taillights blinked back at her and disappeared around the bend. Adam cursed the driver under his breath and sat up. The drive had taken longer than usual. His wife had told him to stop for snack breaks every hour ...

19 likes

Mrs. Frisbie

Jennifer Gurney

Submitted to Contest #149

Writing Prompt #297 - Two people who form a bond through music Reedsy Prompts 6/3/22 By Jen Gurney It was 1973 and I was in fifth grade. My family had just bought an old, rickety upright piano from our neighbors who were moving and couldn’t take it with them. My dad and a few neighborhood dads carried it to our house from theirs, swearing a lot the whole time, if memory serves. It was painted this cheesy, antiquey olive green color, sounded really tinny, and more than a few keys stuck. Pretty hideous, but it was only $200, so it became ...

18 likes

Dark Fair

Submitted to Contest #149

(Trigger warning: This story contains mentions of violence and suicide)The Game began on a Saturday in the spring of 1932. The blue sky arched like the tents of the fair that had arrived the night before, unnoticed by the inhabitants of the small harbour town. It was the fishermen who first noticed the lights behind the hilltops and already an hour later the message was on everyone's lips.Now you have to know that pleasure rarely reached the southernmost tip of Cornwall. People lived on what they fished out of the rough waters in their cutte...

18 likes

The Truth Will Set You Free (But First it Will Kill You)

Kristen Nazzaro Keller

Submitted to Contest #149

I told the cops that I didn’t see Danica that night. That was a lie. I told my parents that I had no idea why my roommate had been on the bell tower in the middle of the night. That was a lie. I cried with her parents when I told them she had been depressed for months. That was a lie. ~ The Thursday that Danica died we had spent the evening watching trashy reality TV, just like we had every Thursday for the last two years. Around midnight I turned off the television and handed her a small white card. The front of the card read, 'C...

16 likes

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Contest #150

This contest has ended. Thank you for your submissions.

$250

Prize money

252

Entries

123

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jun 10, 2022 EST

Won by Katy B 🏆

Title: How to Win a Game of Chess Without Really Trying

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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