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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#172: Feel the Feels

Have you been honest about how you’re feeling lately? Our emotions can be our grounding pillars, but also lead us completely astray. With Taylor Swift’s soul-baring confessional album Midnights breaking all possible global records and the year-end nearing, I bet you’re getting into the feels 一 about different people, events, and things happening in your life. This could be one prominent emotion, or a messy amalgamation of them. To quote Taylor, you might be feeling “Happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time”.

In the spirit of Midnights and one last dose of ‘normalcy’ pre-festivities, this week’s prompts are inspired by the most complicated but wonderful thing about human beings 一 our feelings.

This week's prompts

Set your story in a world devoid of logic, where feelings govern all decision-making.

Angst – 22 stories

Write about a character who must confess their true feelings by midnight, or risk losing it all.

Romance – 35 stories

Write about a character reminiscing over something they should have said, and how their life would be completely different had they said it.

Sad – 63 stories

Set your story in an unfiltered world, where people are always honest about how they feel.

Dystopian – 23 stories

Write a story about a character who acts like they ‘don’t have feelings’ — except they’re just putting up a facade.

Character – 45 stories

Stories

“A FULL LIFE” by Eileen Turner

Submitted to Contest #172

A FULL LIFE Dr. Samuel swished the dividing curtain closed as he left. Nolla straightened the sheets and folded the frail hands over the ribcage. She reached in the bedside table for a comb and tried to arrange the hair. Nolla tidied the bedside area and made the woman’s remains as presentable as possible; it had been a long battle and Mrs. Grant’s gaunt face looked battle worn. “Mrs. Grant’s family will ...

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“Before You Act, Remember Samson” by Philip Ebuluofor

Submitted to Contest #172

Deaths due to cult activities are on the increase a lot not only in schools but in the streets and marketplaces in Ukpoi autonomous community these days. Various cult groups run after recruits as the military runs after recruits to beef up their depleting ranks during the war. They seem to have made that town their headquarters. They had thought it was a fashion that will soon wear off with young males but they were wrong and when they realized it, it was too late. Young females and older peo...

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“Heavens gate” by Mary Lehnert

Submitted to Contest #172

Trembling at Heaven’s Gate, where earthly time ceases and a man’s fate is decided, I’m about to be immersed in my Final Test. Feeling strangely exhilarated in a state of wonder, confusion and dread, Heaven's Gate, like a gothic tower rising in the clouds has, inside, a cozy English pub.. Cordially invited by blissfully charming angels who’ve brought me to meet Peter the Great for my initial interview. He approaches with arms outstretched to embrace me, double kissed me on the cheeks, his stubby mustache felt rough. ...

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“THE BALLOON BOY” by Susan Catucci

Submitted to Contest #172

Jasper Engstrom frowned as he placed his phone back in the charging station. He crossed the living room to the large front picture window and gazed out at the private road that ran in front of their house. It was a beautiful Autumn day. The trees were in peak form, alive with vibrant splashes of orange, red and yellow. The leaves hadn’t begun to actually fall, so the brilliant green of the well-tended Engstrom lawn completed the perfectly seasonal setting. Jasper was looking but he wasn’t seeing what was in fro...

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“Bliss or Tragedy” by Teresa Eder

Submitted to Contest #172

I look down and can‘t help but be afraid of the fall. It‘s higher than I initially thought and yet, at the same time, not high enough. How many seconds would someone fall until they hit the ground? And, on the way down, would that person wish it to be longer? What would someone in that situation think about? Or would it be the first time they didn‘t? Would it be bliss or a tragedy? I look up. It is a beautiful day. The perfect day, really, but when I close my eyes I can‘t hear the birds chirping or the river hundreds of feet below. I can‘t f...

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“The Witches Contract” by Laura Ethington

Submitted to Contest #172

Her wicked eyes brimmed with angry tears as she put the final nail into the door, sealing it shut. The entrance of her home. Or at least what she called home for the last blissful two years. She was tired of running. Tired of creating another version of herself. Or at least a version of herself she wouldn't be able to touch for two hundred years or so. She usually had fifteen to twenty before people started staring at her too long. Holding their children a little tighter as she walked by. Something happened this time, She though...

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“Crying Count” by Millie Hazen

Submitted to Contest #172

“Maria Lobell, it’s your turn,” a tall woman announced from the doorway. My hands gripped tighter to the satchel I was carrying. It’s now or never, I thought. I had been out of work for months, barely scraping by in dad's basement. The smiling lady held the door open as I stepped into the carpeted room. Three cries, that's it. No wonder this woman has such a high position here; she is strong. I tried to cover the floating number over my head, an embarrassing seven. Only three more days till January first, then a clean slate I reminded...

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“Confession” by Lonnie Larson

Submitted to Contest #172

John left the office at ten minutes after five and headed straight for home. He went out in the back yard with his son and played catch until it was time for supper. John watched as his son, Billy, finished his homework after supper was done. After watching some TV, they all went to bed.Just as John crawled into bed next to his wife, a sudden chill went through his body, and he shuddered.“What is it, John?” Marry asked. “Are you alright?”“Just got the chills all of a sudden. A feeling that something is wrong,” he replied. “I’m fine now thoug...

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“Maybe More” by D. W. Rogers

Submitted to Contest #172

Maybe More The road was foggy, and Jack was exhausted, but he had a Thanksgiving dinner to get to at his parent’s house. Thanksgiving and Christmas were the only times he ever went back to see his family anymore. He was fresh off of work. Cleaning toilets for a living was not exactly a prestigious job, but at least it paid for his one-bedroom apartment. It was late Wednesday night, and if he drove straight through he should be able to be there by midnight. He had to drive straight through, he couldn’t afford a hotel. He stopped at a rest...

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“Love's Repast” by Russell Mickler

Submitted to Contest #172

The Athenaeum. Joliver Muses. Dessert.In the City State of Nodderton, there is a secret library filled with dusty scrolls, lost manuscripts, memoirs of wizards and ghosts, long-forgotten books and essays, uncensored forbidden plays, and the rarest maps.There are only two ways to find this library. The first is through rigorous investigation and study; one only requires an unyielding curiosity. Whereas the second way, the more magical way, is to stumble across it by chance, precisely when it is needed.Joliver Barleywood, a learned bard and a ...

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“You know it to be true” by Nikki Potgieter

Submitted to Contest #172

Sometimes I feel like a foreigner in my own mind, or like my mind is the foreing place in and of itself. I often feel lost. Everyone else instinctively knows what is expected of them, how to feel and how to react. It’s as if they have a knack for life that some of us will never master. Do you know how often I find myself apologising for something, not knowing what exactly I’m apologising for? The closest thing to an answer that I’ve been able to come up with, is that I’m apologising for my existence. Feeling. This is a word I have trouble wi...

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“Shirts and sinks” by Emma McBean

Submitted to Contest #172

I run over to my bathroom sink and make it just in time to aim the drops of blood from my nose into it. I feel electric, like every atom of my body is lit up and every hair is raised on high alert. I'm not surprised I have a bloody nose. I am more concerned with not getting blood on any of the carpets.I did push him; I really should have shut my mouth. I know himwell enough now that my intuition gives me a massive nudge when to stop, butsometimes I can't. Why should I get up to a car with no fuel in it? With atoddler in tow. God forbid, I de...

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“god of azon” by Marty B

Submitted to Contest #172

I have never been this high in the Temple, climbing to the most sacred floor to bring an answer to the greatest issue facing our Church in years. I fear it is the wrong answer. I do not want to go. I pray to the gods they do not take their rage out on the bearer of the message. My red robes, thick and heavy, slide down my shoulders as I take step after step. All I hear is the shushing sound of it scraping along the stone steps. Sweat runs down my forehead and prickles along my back as I walk through the pools of flickering can...

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“Unexpected ” by Lisa Pulliam

Submitted to Contest #172

The sky was gray and cloudy. And the man hanging out under the pantheon wore a trench coat and hat. I was nervous to meet him. He would tell me what happened to Todd. The man I used to meet at the cafe with the lights that glowed warm like the sun. The man I was considering marrying if he said he wanted to. The one who replaced my memories and fears of past relationships with a gentle laugh and twinkling eyes. I had been setting aside the memories because Todd has been missing for a week. His mysterious two week long trip has...

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“Unfiltered Utopia ” by Emma Ingram

Submitted to Contest #172

Unfiltered Utopia. That was the life that cursed us. With a government harvesting a cabinet of lies, a lover stoking the fire of tainted infidelities, and parents telling shivering infants it would be okay - the world decided to be folded. Cruelty inward, it burned, and loudly outward it hissed. The trees began to droop a little lower, and the sky turned a murky, dirty blue. The smell of a fresh loaf of bread oozed a metallic odor, and the taste of all things now bitter. Thought’s once silenced and bit on the end of tongues - rung truer than...

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$250

Prize money

188

Contest entries

90

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Nov 18, 2022 EST

Won by Lisa Lange 🏆

Title: Apples and Trees

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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