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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

“The Birdscab Case ” by M B

Submitted to Contest #182

I leapt into the backseat of the taxi cab and took extra care not to slam the door on my long, pink rat tail. “Follow that car!” I demanded, pointing ahead at the jet black sedan that was presently speeding away of us. The cabby, a weasel, looked back at me and twitched his whiskers. “Ya, serious Mack?” he asked. “Damn right I’m serious, there’s a nice tip for you, but hurry up, they’re getting away!” The weasel twitched his ears and faced front. “Alright! Buckle up, Mr. Rat.” I buckled up as the weasel - wh...

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“The Gods We Know” by Molly Kelash

Submitted to Contest #182

No way this asshole was getting away with it. Not over my dead body if I could help it, but definitely over his.Rage and adrenaline masking my pain, I wiped the blood from my eyes and wobbled from the alley to the road. I flagged down an empty taxi, then another, then a third, but they all passed me, speeding by as if I didn’t exist. Not a single pedestrian so much as looked my way either. Doubtless they all avoided me because of the blood streaming down my face. Better not to get involved, eh? This goddamned city. Living here would have dra...

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“The Red Dress” by Holly Grover Brandon

Submitted to Contest #182

Francesca struggled to keep up as she stalked the woman leaving Sak’s Fifth Avenue. Weaving through hoards of pedestrians, she knew she couldn’t lose sight of the black and white shopping bag swinging from the lady’s arm. Her eyes followed the bag as it was tossed into the passenger seat of an ugly blue hatchback. Panicking, Francesca scanned the busy road for a familiar flash of yellow. Upon spotting it, she threw her hand out to hail the taxi, breathing a sigh of relief when it stopped in front of her. “Follow that car!” Francesca cri...

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“One Night” by Merrie Jackson

Submitted to Contest #182

Without warning, Pheobe, a mid-height African American woman of 30 years, is startled awake one night by her home alarm system going off. Many years of listening for babies, allows her to go from deep sleep to full wakefulness to identify the threat! What is that sound? Quickly she recognized the alarm system and wonders who or what had triggered it! Ignoring the alarm, she climbs out of bed, grabs a robe, putting it on, and quietly walks down the long hallway toward the front of the hous...

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“House For Sale” by David St.George

Submitted to Contest #182

The alarm system just woke us up . Please God, don’t let that thing follow us here! I never believed in spirits or ghosties or any of that stuff before. In fact, I was practically a card carrying atheist/materialist ever since my college days when I undertook the study of philosophy. Reading the works of the logical empiricists set me on a path of hard headed, scientific rationalism where science and logic defined what does and does not exist in the universe. I was proud of this heritage and would scoff at any Christian who prayed ...

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“Miss Emily” by Ed Wooten

Submitted to Contest #182

The ear-splitting squawking of my home alarm system going off rudely rousted me from my sleep. I sprang from my bed, located the control panel, and punched in the code to stop the irritating sound. With a degree of calm now in the house, I grabbed the Louisville Slugger from the corner near my bed and carefully walked through each room to ascertain that I was alone. I checked the back bedroom first, then the kitchen, dining room, and finally the living room. With a degree of confidence that all was secure, I flopped dow...

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“Silence” by Camille Mockingjay

Submitted to Contest #182

My toes, sockless, freeze as soon as they touch the bedroom floor. I can feel the air from the vents, reaching me from under my bed. I check the time. It’s 2:08. The dead of night, and it is silent. There is no wind blowing. There is no crackle of the house settling. The bed doesn’t creak when I stand. I wrap a blanket around me and shudder. It’s so quiet that I can hear my heart beating. I knew living alone would mean being alone. However, I didn’t realize I could get lonely so quickly. I was not used to being the only source of nois...

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“What's Going On” by Duane Schultz

Submitted to Contest #182

What’s Going On? I’m not sure exactly when this craziness all started, perhaps on that fateful day when I went down to pick up my mail in the lobby of my apartment building. This was about two weeks ago. It was a beautiful day with the sun shining, several residents visiting together in the entrance lounge area, and my neighbor Bill sharing a story with me about weird characters banging on his balcony railings at 5 am. I never heard a t...

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“Lucky” by Annabella Bones

Submitted to Contest #182

The alarm wailed throughout the house. Having been tucked in for the night reading by lamplight, I had nearly jumped out of my skin, it startled me so. In my nightrobe, I scrambled out of bed and shot like a bullet down the hall. The white paneled door ornated in cut-out stars and construction paper rainbows was still closed. “Lucky, stay in your room!” I shouted to my little girl, Rebecca, on the other side, knowing she would be lying wide awake in her bed beneath the purple butterfly blanket, clutching Baily Bear, frightened. Taking the st...

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“Instances of Pleasure” by Jonathan Carrillo

Submitted to Contest #182

There’s a loud ringing in my ears and I know that it’s the alarm but I don’t want to get out of bed yet, so I let it ring, ring, ring until its chirp is so loud that I can feel droplets of blood slipping down my earlobe. My eyes open slowly to a blank, grey room covered in unframed Basquiat and Lichtenstein paintings and motivational statements that I don’t identify with. A minute passes before I remember that it’s my bedroom. The sheets smell vaguely of piss and the door to the hall is cracked open and there’s a light, flickering down at th...

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“Winter Wonderland” by Foster Powell

Submitted to Contest #182

The night sky twinkled with the litter of a thousand stars. The stillness of winter had set upon the boxed houses with the silence of a library. Large snowflakes the size of golf balls drifted blissfully into gravity’s inescapable pull, fluttering and flopping in the thick air, until they hit the ground, lost in a blanket of white. The sidewalks were covered in a heaping sheet of fresh powder that crunched with each step. The silence of the outdoors soothed my soul as I walked, head filled with fleeting thoughts of the day’s experience...

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“Haunter of the Mansion” by Amber Prohaska

Submitted to Contest #182

Waaa! Waaa! Waaa! The dreams that we dream time and again bind us into our existing lives, in a weird, often overlooked way. We dream in nightmares and we see nightmares play out around us- shattered plans, large-scale disasters, kidnapped children, death, disaster, mayhem- and then we dream in nightmares. The circle goes round and round. Which causes which is a great mystery. Like skillful spiders, we weave our nightmares with our realities with such intricate details that soon, we can't tell one from the other. The beauty of childhood...

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“Unwoven Threads” by Cajek Veilwinter

Submitted to Contest #182

Danny blinked awake to the red light blinking next to his bed on the table, next to a shot glass and an alarm clock - almost in sync with a lightning flash outside: Someone had tripped his DYI home alarm system. He didn’t own a gun for various reasons, so he quietly reached for the fighting baton he kept under his bed. Creeping out of his small room and into the hallway, he saw yellow light pouring out of his dining room. Either it was someone wanting to be noticed or a trap to distract him. Doing a dodge roll into the kitchenette, he ...

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“"Wendy, the home security alarm"” by Valerie Shand

Submitted to Contest #182

WENDY, THE HOME SECURITY ALARM The home alarm system went off. Again. That's it! She shook her head. She was going to get a dog. The alarm kept up its shrieking! Sheila didn't even bother wheeling around the house and checking the doors and windows this time because it sure to be another a false alarm. She'd come to hate it in the past few days even though it came with the property and promoted as a giant selling point to keep her safe. And it did. But the alarm panels were so much higher than the ADA's now-required 48 inches of...

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“Granny’s eyes” by Johnny Fist

Submitted to Contest #182

Alarm system shouted, like old teacher shouting on young student, who forgot to do his homework again. I opened my eyes and took my body from my bed. I don’t like to awake earlier, then 8 o’clock. I looked at my clock – 3:45. Too early for global incidents, but enough for local crisis. I put my pans on and run out of my room. I just opened the door and I saw my Granny on a wheelchair, who was standing in front of my door. Her eyes were dark, as she was looking deep inside black hole. - Granny, can yo...

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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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