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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#182: Feeling Watched

Being self-conscious is one thing; being paranoid is quite another. Feeling eyes on you changes your behavior, simultaneously casting you in a reality TV show and a dystopian horror film. Do you thrive in attention, feel jumpy, or overthink your every move?

Let’s don our trench coats, take a furtive glance around a street corner, and search the unmoving darkness for answers. Don’t forget your torch.

This week's prompts

Start your story with a home alarm system going off.

Dramatic – 49 stories

Set your story in a society where everyone is constantly aware of unwanted surveillance.

Dystopian – 27 stories

Write a story where someone’s paranoia is justified.

Mystery – 78 stories

Write about a character who wishes they could just disappear — and then they do.

Mystery – 50 stories

Start your story with someone entering a taxi and saying ‘follow that car.’

Dramatic – 33 stories

Stories

“Don't Look” by Taylor Castellon

Submitted to Contest #182

On days like these I liked to focus more on what I was feeling than what I could see. What I was physically feeling, touching, on days when it was so hard not to look. On days like these I fought my every instinct to contemplate the images entering my eyes, and instead created new ones that came from every inch of my body. The wind was slow and winding and it held only the smallest chill when it brushed against my cheek. It was the only interruption from the beating sunlight that tingled against the right side of my body, I coul...

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“The Follicle Chronicles - Pt 2: A Fistful of Follicles” by Jim Firth

Submitted to Contest #182

Apparently, the best spot for a clandestine wig-slinging operation is the basement of a laundromat whose opening hours are zero. Well, zero for everyone except those clutching a fistful of follicles, like myself. I’m fresh off of my first job with Mace, laden with more hair than I dare carry in the streets, and I’m wondering how much the wigmaker pays for a spectacular haul like ours. There’s 15 grams of my own hair, 42 grams of my wife’s, and a sheaf of blonde lifted from the elite madam whom Mace and I robbed like the highwaymen of old. Or...

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“The Deceiving Machine” by Vincent Paiement Désilets

Submitted to Contest #182

I'm watching the night's footage from the camera I had to install, contributing to global surveillance, because someone's been stealing my packages, and I see the shady creep dressed in black who's been roaming in front of my block for days shoot some guy in the head, look up at the camera, haul the corpse in a black car and drive away. This morning, there was no package on the balcony, but faint mud traces leading to my door. Can’t be me, I haven’t left my apartment in weeks, order everything online. Don’t even go to work anymore. My assho...

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“Trapped in a Game: How One's Suspicions Exposed a Galactic Conspiracy” by Nico Pengin

Submitted to Contest #182

Part 1: I've always been paranoid about the Unknown Blues. Even before I started playing Batey, I couldn't shake the feeling that they were hiding something from us. They came to Earth, saved us from certain doom, and then decided to keep us trapped inside their ship, Gibraltar, using us as entertainment in their twisted game, as this intellectual species was bored and needed to be entertained. At first, I was excited to be a part of the Batey league. It was a new, futuristic sport, and I was good at it. But as I played, I started to notic...

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“Memaw's delusion” by Tim Cummings

Submitted to Contest #182

One of my most terrifying tasks as a boy was “picking off a switch” for my grandmother. This is the situation in which a rambunctious and nerve-grinding eight-year-old boy, as was I, pushes his caretaker, his “memaw,” past her emotional limits to a point at which she demands to inflict corporal damage upon the child’s backside. I recall scanning both the large and small trees lining the yard, looking for perhaps the flimsiest and least harmful branch that I could pull from the trunk. Notably, memaw would watch my efforts and warn me that if ...

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“No Good Deed . . . ” by Marguerite Schneider

Submitted to Contest #182

No Good Deed . . . By Marguerite Schneider "This story is a fictionalized composite of several work experiences. Names and identifying features of characters have been changed to protect their identity, as has the organizational setting and context. Any resemblance to actual persons, events or organizations is purely coincidental." A new Vice President of Customer Service (VP CS) was appointed at OMEGA Corporation, a major IT firm headquartered in NYC that had the deserved reputation for being a Darwinian workplace. &nbsp...

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“Crush” by Tyhesia Watson

Submitted to Contest #182

(Trigger Warnings: Explicit Language And Stalking) "Hey Bryan" I jumped as Nick called out to me before rolling over to my cuticle, “You good man?” “Yeah, I’m good.” We talked and did some work for a while until the elevator dinged and the swarm of employees came into the area and started getting ready for the day. With those employees came the feeling of being watched. I look around the room once but shook off the feeling. It may just be one of my managers about to get onto me about something. As time passes the managers never said anythin...

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“Afternoon Plans Have Changed” by DEBORAH CLARK

Submitted to Contest #182

Dick was elated when he dropped off his daughter, little Nell at a birthday party, it had been a while since he felt comfortable leaving her someplace. Now he had a child-free Saturday afternoon filled with endless possibilities. Maybe some woodworking in the shed, maybe the latest John Grisham novel, but the thought of a cup of tea and a soccer game appealed to him the most. Dick unlocked both locks on the front door, then put the code in to turn off the alarm. As he w...

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“Bobby Carter's Crimes” by Stephanie DeVries

Submitted to Contest #182

BOBBY CARTER’S CRIMES “Welcome to Shady Maple!” Maxine bellowed, extending her muscular, tattooed arms out toward the newest resident of the private women’s shelter, a tiny blonde wisp of a thing, barely half of Maxine’s formidable figure. “You must be Stella!” Stella silently followed Maxine to the sleeping quarters where some of the other women were camped out on their respective narrow beds. The shelter was always maxed out at 12 women, and Maxine was sure to remind Stella how lucky she was to have a spot for the next 90 days. ...

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“Tacos Interrupted” by Odile Glatz

Submitted to Contest #182

I am walking with my sister Molly to the local Tom Thumb grocery store for taco fixings. We offered to make dinner for our family today. I’m just a year older than Molly and a bit taller too. I’ve always been close with Molly, as we have so much in common. We love volleyball, and drama club, and spending time at home in the kitchen around the large island. We love to cook and bake, and Mexican cuisine is a favorite. We look like sisters, light brown hair and grey eyes. Well, Molly’s eyes are greenish in color. &...

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“The Plan” by Leanne Bosse

Submitted to Contest #182

The crimson red numbers glared at Sarah from across the bedroom, 11:45. “Come on Sarah! Get yourself together!” She frantically gave herself a pep talk to try and calm her nerves, but honestly, it only made things worse. Her hands shook uncontrollably while stuffing whatever clean clothes she could find into the old tattered military duffle bag. She had to hurry, only an hour before her plan would fall through. “God Sarah!’, she yelled in her head, “You’re insane! This will never work! He will find you, and then what? What will you...

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“Snake Eyes” by S.E Axe

Submitted to Contest #182

I am being watched. It is something that I long lived in denial of. Excusing it as some quirk of hereditary anxiety or an overactive imagination stifled by rural upbringing, but since returning to my childhood home denial feels like a luxury that I do not have the distance to continue affording. So, yes, I am being watched. I grew up in the western interior of Nebraska which I’m sure already brings a not inaccurate image to mind. Tiny home with a creaky floor and bad insulation, a beat-down silver Camry with a peeling “come and take it...

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“Between the Shoes” by Lieb E

Submitted to Contest #182

Quickly checking over his left shoulder he dashed to the entrance of his apartment and hastily took out his keys. Struggling to fit them into his lock his panic started rising. Counter-intuitively, this lowered his accuracy. Through the rising adrenaline, he finally managed to find the lock and he wiggled his keys around until he heard the relieving click of success. He pushed through the door and just as soon as he had slipped in he rammed it shut and re-locked it, hoping that anyone who tried to cheat the lock would struggle just as muc...

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“Only Paranoia If You Are Wrong” by Kathleen Hair

Submitted to Contest #182

The three most common things you’ll hear about from a Houstonian, the traffic is some of the worst in the country, the heat (enough said), and oil is king.The traffic had already built up after lunch assuring that my super short walk home would double at this time of day. The joint in my pocket was figuratively burning a hole in my pocket for how badly I wanted to relax, so I posted up beneath a tree and fished around in my pockets for a lighter.“No way man, really?”I’d scoped the area out before I sat beneath this line of trees separating t...

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“The Unbearably Slow Disappearance of Josh” by Claudio Murgia

Submitted to Contest #182

When I met Josh he was all in one piece. I know this sentence doesn’t make much sense to you right now, but bear with me. I barely believe it and I was witness to it. But where do we end up if we don’t trust our own experiences? I met Josh in school. He was quite sociable, smart but, at the same time, an introvert. Maybe not exactly an introvert, but you could often find him staring at nothing in the middle of class or even when there was a group of us having a chat, he would just be in his own world. We were not really friends, but I liked ...

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$250

Prize money

237

Contest entries

154

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jan 27, 2023 EST

Won by Liv Chocolate 🏆

Title: Careful—You’ll Slip, Fall, and Die on Those Slippery Slopes

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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