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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#151: Back to the Reboot

This past week we’ve been inspired by Lightyear, Top Gun: Maverick, and all the prequels, sequels, and reboots hitting our screens lately. For many of us, reboots inspire a sense of nostalgia, or déjà vu. But how do you interpret them? Do you welcome new creatives and their reimaginings of the past, or do you crave something fresh in its own right?

Of course, repetition can be creepy — and it can even become boring — but it can also open the doorway to improvement and growth. However you feel about the ever-rebirthing media cycle surrounding us, we hope you’ll find inspiration in these week’s prompts:

🥇 Winner

“The Lake” by Kelsey H

The summer I turned sixteen and got my license, Kyle Lewis was pulled dead from the lake. It was the week before Christmas and heat pressed down over the town. People went to the lake to cool off, but Kyle didn’t drown. There was no water in his lungs.Coming back now, ten years passed, like always when I returned to visit my parents, I found myself slowing down when I reached the lake. The turn off was on the long road which led to their house and then on into town, and I felt myself pulled toward it, as if a magnet lay ...

193 comments 193 WINNER 🏆

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⭐️ Shortlisted

“How to Seek the Sun” by Claire Lindsey

Keep your head down. Eyes low.Tread softly, placing your boots with their duct-taped soles in the prints left by the person in front of you.Don’t go too fast, for the person behind.Don’t stop. Don’t look back.And don’t look up.~~~Keep your head down. The wind is strong, strong enough to pull you off course, if you let it.The wind carries things with it. Dust that grits up in your eyes and your mouth, a reminder of ...

67 comments 67 SHORTLIST ⭐️

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“ Ten for you, Twenty-six for me” by Aesha Amin

The metro I take to work, the polluted air of Mumbai, the faces I smile at and the faces that don’t smile back— they are stained a coffee-brown. The same color as old pages and medieval fables. The lives lived in abandoned childhood homes. Memories turned cinder. The air inside the all-women compartment threatens to asphyxiate me; smoke whisks into oxygen as cigarettes burn against already scorched fingers of these strangely familiar women surrounding me. The...

52 comments 52 SHORTLIST ⭐️

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This week's prompts

Write about a character who wakes up in their past life, or as a future reincarnation of themself.

Fantasy – 54 stories

Write about somebody breaking a cycle.

Narrative – 43 stories

Write about a character who keeps ending up in the same place.

Sad – 41 stories

Repeat the same line of dialogue, from the same character, three separate times.

Middle School – 59 stories

Write about a character who’s expected to follow in someone’s footsteps.

Kids – 38 stories

Stories

“The Lake” by Kelsey H

The summer I turned sixteen and got my license, Kyle Lewis was pulled dead from the lake. It was the week before Christmas and heat pressed down over the town. People went to the lake to cool off, but Kyle didn’t drown. There was no water in his lungs.Coming back now, ten years passed, like always when I returned to visit my parents, I found myself slowing down when I reached the lake. The turn off was on the long road which led to their house and then on into town, and I felt myself pulled toward it, as if a magnet lay ...

193 comments 193 WINNER 🏆

Read story

“How to Seek the Sun” by Claire Lindsey

Keep your head down. Eyes low.Tread softly, placing your boots with their duct-taped soles in the prints left by the person in front of you.Don’t go too fast, for the person behind.Don’t stop. Don’t look back.And don’t look up.~~~Keep your head down. The wind is strong, strong enough to pull you off course, if you let it.The wind carries things with it. Dust that grits up in your eyes and your mouth, a reminder of ...

67 comments 67 SHORTLIST ⭐️

Read story

“ Ten for you, Twenty-six for me” by Aesha Amin

The metro I take to work, the polluted air of Mumbai, the faces I smile at and the faces that don’t smile back— they are stained a coffee-brown. The same color as old pages and medieval fables. The lives lived in abandoned childhood homes. Memories turned cinder. The air inside the all-women compartment threatens to asphyxiate me; smoke whisks into oxygen as cigarettes burn against already scorched fingers of these strangely familiar women surrounding me. The...

52 comments 52 SHORTLIST ⭐️

Read story

“Passing Through” by Deidra Whitt Lovegren

“We are here again.”“Unfortunately…”“How long have you been waiting?”“A few years or so, but what does that matter? You are here now.”“Remind me of this past life. Who were we?”“Old Yemeni soldiers. Too old to fight, actually—but what can you do? The Houthi took control of Sanaa. I died in your arms.”“Terrorist insurgency or foreign invasion?”“Civil War.”“Ah, yes. I remember now. We were running. Your skull shattered. I saw your brains ooze into the gutter. Quite awful.”“I don...

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“Incarnation” by Michał Przywara

Today is my coronation. My thirteenth birthday.Tomorrow is the day I die.I grip the howdah’s railing as the elephant lurches down the Way of Heroes. I wave to the people lining the broad, cobbled street. I’m thankful for the parasol, shielding me from the searing sun.“They love you,” says the man beside me, gripping my shoulder. Yesterday, he was King Henloc. Today, he abdicated. Tomorrow, he will be king again.Thousands watch us pass, cheering, waving, and celebrating the Sacred Coronation. Behind them the san...

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“The All-Star” by Kathleen Fine

Theodore Hurlbutt III scratched at the poison ivy inching its way up his twig-like, pale arm as he heard a whistle blow from across the field. Good thing I never got chicken pox, he thought as he picked at the bumpy blisters on his skin- clear liquid oozing out. He couldn’t resist a good scratch, even if it might spread the dreadful rash.He’d gotten the outbreak the weekend before on a camping trip with his father in West Virginia. “It’ll be good for your bones!” his dad had announced as he packed up his Chevy Tahoe with a...

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“The Time Cheat ” by Beth Jackson

“So, tell me why you’re here?”Len picked at a thread on the couch and avoided eye contact with the psychologist. Why was he there? Mostly because of his heartless, cheating, thieving monster of a wife, he supposed.Ex-wife.“Closure,” he said.The psychologist nodded, her face impassive behind her steel-rimmed glasses. She glanced down at her notes.“I see here you’re suffering some health issues?” she asked.Len shrugged. He was sixty-e...

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“Across Lifetimes” by F.J Red

TW: mild themes of DV“Break the cycle, my daughter. Don’t end up like me.” My mother would tell me. The earth has felt the footsteps of countless women before me who’ve fallen victim to the cycle of abuse, passed down from mother to daughter. Like the sun that sets when the moon appears, abuse became the relentless rhythm of repetition. With it, tradition formed the lyrics to this sombre tune, its haunting echoes swirling through the bloodlines, replaying on a constant, agonizing loop. Eff...

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“Yellow Dot Fever” by Seán McNicholl

The old doctor sat back and rubbed at his chin. “And when did the symptoms start?” he said after a fashion, his eyes scanning over the young woman before him. “W-Well doctor,” the girl said as her tongue danced along her lower lip and her fingers gently drummed her legs, “I-Eh-I think about two months ago or so.” “And all the symptoms started at once?”“Eh, I-I-I don’t think so doctor. It’s just gradually got worse and worse. And now, I-I can’t control it, I-I-I need help!” she stammered out...

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“Just Stop” by Kanika G

THEN When I knocked on the door of my manager’s office at 9:30 a.m. that morning, my throat felt dry and constricted. Despite the 22-degree-Celsius setting of the office air-conditioner, my shirt stuck to my sweaty back and my hands were clammy and shaky. “Come in please,” he said in his usual toneless voice. &nbs...

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“A World of Difference” by Zack Powell

Content warning: Themes of racismThe first time I went to Kyle Rockefeller's house, I spent the majority of my visit in the bathroom, marveling at his toilet water.He showed me around the place with the authority of a junior architect, gesturing to the porcelain tiling of the outdoor kitchen and reflecting on the rooftop spire that looked like an upside-down waffle cone. We moved leisurely. Save for Benson, the Rockefeller's mustachioed butler/chauffeur who'd driven us there after school let out, the ho...

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“True Colors” by Thom Brodkin

“Hi, my name is Richard, but everyone calls me Ricky—I’m six and a half.”“Hi Ricky! I’m Jimmy. I’m six, too.”“I’m six and a half! I’ll be seven in September.”“My mom says I’ll be six and a half next month.”“Hey, we’re practically the sameage.””That means we’ll be in the same grade. Are you gonna go to Faulkner Ridge Elementary?””I think so. Do you go there?”“Uh-huh. It’s close enough we can walk there. Do yo...

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“What Really Happened” by Hannah P. Simmons

I A whisper. That’s what woke Meg. Her eyes snapped open with panic and she held her breath a moment, waiting for the voice to speak again. The clock ticked melodically on the wall, the floorboards of the old house creaked as it settled, and raindrops hit the window like tiny pebbles.But none of this had awakened her. She was used to these sounds. They reminded her she was home. Two years hadn’t been long eno...

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“Fade to Black” by H L McQuaid

A young girl with strawberry blonde hair clutches a stuffed bunny rabbit as she follows the trail of matted grass and snapped twigs. Ahead of her a man drags something heavy, wrapped in a blanket, deeper into the woods.He sings, “I'd like to lay my weary bones tonight, on a bed of California stars…”He stops, wipes sweat from his brow. She ducks behind a tree, holds her breath, then peeks her head out to watch. He digs, his shovel tossing dirt, until it clangs on metal. He rolls the stuffed blanket into ...

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“SHADOWMAN” by Chris Campbell

Lurking in the dark shadows of a slum alleyway, I stealthily waited for my chance to strike an emancipating blow for justice. What had been in the planning for three months would unleash unsuspecting and vengeful hell on some deserving reprobates. I knew their patterns of behaviour and without detection, had followed these violent creatures of habit for the last several nights. Vengeance was about to take on a new form and I assigned myself the responsibility to execute it with severe intolerance. When done, the city would breathe a big s...

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$250

Prize money

235

Contest entries

114

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jun 24, 2022 EST

Won by Kelsey H 🏆

Title: The Lake

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.

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