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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#185: Hoarding Away

Much like dragons, people love a good hoard. Whether it’s money, objects, or even people, collecting can be a hobby — or an obsession. Our collections might be a maximalist hodge-podge shoved into every nook and cranny, a meticulously organized catalog with every item neatly labeled, or they may not even be tangible at all. Junk or riches, thoughts or feelings, even if we don’t know it, we might be unconsciously clinging on to something.

This week’s prompts evoke treasure troves, keepsakes, and whatever it is that compels us to hold on tightly.

This week's prompts

Write a story about someone who doesn’t know how to let go.

Dramatic – 121 stories

Someone’s beloved collection is destroyed. How do they react?

Adults – 25 stories

Start a story with someone saying, “It’s mine, and you can’t have it!”

Dialogue – 25 stories

Write about a dragon who doesn’t know what to do with their hoard anymore.

Fantasy – 63 stories

Set all or part of your story in a jam-packed storage unit.

Mystery – 46 stories

Stories

“From Nothing They Came” by Jill Tetherow

Submitted to Contest #185

From nothing we came, and to nothing we will return. What a depressing thought. I walked from room to room. It was time to say goodbye—to my house, my dreams, and to myself. Every step hurt worse than the one before, but I kept going. I remember when we moved into town, my husband and I. He, a new banker, and myself, an eager homemaker. The rundown colonial home we purchased had beckoned me. Everything about it seemed big, important, and impressive—adjectives not used for ranch kids. With a little polish, it could be the most...

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“Conversations on Watch” by Jocelyn Parkhurst

Submitted to Contest #185

“What?” Raff exclaimed, taking his eye off the scope and staring at me. “You had to tell me this now?” “Why not?” I responded, keeping my focus on the landing pad through the lens of the charged pulse rifle. “Not a whole lot going on until the Captain and the Ambassador get back.” “It’s a little bit of a bomb to drop on a guy.” “Well, it’s not about you, now is it.” “Come on Syl, you know whatever you decide we’ll support. But we work with you, and you know...” “I’ve just been holding on to some shit, ...

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“The Ties That Bind” by Beth Rae

Submitted to Contest #185

Everything Joss Ackles did annoyed me. From the way he ran his fingers through his dark hair when he was deep in thought to the way he chewed his food with precise, intense concentration. But that was only because I had been in love with him since I was sixteen and he eighteen. He had gone away to college and came back three years later with his beautiful wife Charlotte in tow, breaking my heart and shattering my dreams – even if I hadn't had any reason for hope that he would even remember my name. And then, two years into their marriage, Ch...

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“Time Loops” by Lauren Normac

Submitted to Contest #185

“It started because you didn’t want to go, correct? You stayed home? A regret you’d like to fix?” The demon in the shadowy corner of her bedroom tilted his head. Normally, Avery wouldn’t want anything to do with demons. They had limited power in the mortal world. If she saw one, she should leave the room, maybe call an exorcist. But this was not a normal time. He was sort of right. She wanted to fix her mistake, and this demon granted wishes. He didn’t even make deals, he just gave people something. So she took his hand, and made her wish....

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“Holding On” by Penni Giuliani

Submitted to Contest #185

I’m up the hill a bit, behind that big gum with the peeling bark, in front of the swings. It’s my spot, where I wait for her while the other mothers, gathering on the basketball court directly outside the classroom, laugh, throwing their heads back, salon hair bouncing around perfectly made faces. Up here I am left alone, avoiding the looks from the clique below. If I was thirty years younger, I would launch fistfuls of tan bark at them and then duck behind the trunk, sniggering. At 3:18 on school days, I replace the blue microfibre cloth...

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“Time Heals Nothing” by Jason Abshire

Submitted to Contest #185

It had been six years since they last felt each other's touch. There were a few phone calls here and there, but never any chance of intimacy—but there was a time. Their existence now was a shell of their once sultry passion. Jim met his future bride, Renee, near the end of his time in college. She was young, intelligent, and if you had asked him, a knockout. She was a site. But an everyday beauty of sorts, and had a way about her that left Jim a hopeless, love drunk fool. Couple that with the intellect that afforded her degree in biology, ...

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“The Desolation of Smythe” by Jed Cope

Submitted to Contest #185

Gone. Every last vestige of my treasure. There is nothing left of my life’s work. The scorched and blackened emptiness before me mirrors the terrible void opening up within me. “You shouldn’t go in there…” I ignore those words. How can I not go in? This is my place. A place that I made. A place that became more and more special to me over the span of my life. Little by little and piece by piece I filled this space with the very best of things. This was as much me as anything else in this world. An extension of my self. A part...

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“Clocks in the Fog” by Cajek Veilwinter

Submitted to Contest #185

Frances Whisperwheel had run to the basement of his clock shop when the ruckus began. Two huge creatures - one a reptiloid and one a black bear - had crashed through the wall of the Fog District in what Frances assumed was some kind of bloodsport. The sound was gigantic: louder than any of the annoying fireworks from the Entertainment District that the little raccoon had heard in his years in Vulane. By the time the two had crashed through the front of his shop, Frances had estimated the loss in his head: forty thousand gold pieces...

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“Cluttered Life” by Jewel Storm

Submitted to Contest #185

“It’s Mine, you can’t have it!” Mary had always been an avid collector. As a child, she had kept every toy, every book, and every trinket that came her way. As she grew older, her collecting habits only grew stronger. She spent hours scouring thrift stores and garage sales, always on the lookout for the next treasure to add to her ever-growing collection.At first, Mary's collecting was harmless. Her apartment was cluttered, but it was manageable. But as the years went by, Mary's collecting habits grew more extreme. She started hoarding every...

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“Volcanic Music” by Paige Ladd

Submitted to Contest #185

“It’s mine, and you can’t have it,” he says, looking like a child despite his thinning hair, and his neck wrinkles.I look from the selection in the vending machine, to the crackerjack box in his hand, and I have serious concerns about this guy. We have only known each other two or three days. I‘ve been doing double time on my short legs to keep up with his long ones all morning long. I’m used to that, of course, in the marching band . . . but still.People warned me that Naples would be confusing. One guy even told me, “At least there’s vendi...

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“Empty Nest” by Jed Cope

Submitted to Contest #185

Maud stretched out languorously upon her mattress of gold and jewels. The sight of it was both grand and impressive, and then some. The gold and jewels sparkled with an inner light and even in the drab lighting of Maud’s lair the mountain of treasure glowed tantalisingly. There is nothing like the sight of untold wealth and riches to get the greed buds itching and tingling and even the least materialistic would be dribbling enviously at Maud’s incredible hoard of treasure. Then there was Maud herself. Maud was, and indeed still is, a drago...

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“The Keeper of the Hoard” by Kandi Zeller

Submitted to Contest #185

TW: violence, war, threats, grief A dragon’s hoard—the stuff of legends and lore. I, Calamint, a dragon myself, inherited just such a hoard. I remember the first time my mother and father showed it to me. Deep in a hidden cave, through a forest protected by other fire-breathers my herd employed. And once inside that alcove of treasure? Glittering disks with odd carvings. Sparkling stones unlike any I’d seen on our mountain. Oddly shaped images—carved in wood or stones or woven on tapestries. “All this is your inherit...

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“A Not So Cute Mountain of Cuteness.” by Emanuel Diaz

Submitted to Contest #185

Once upon a time in the mystical land of Japan, there lived a Ryūjin shinkō dragon by the name of Viryu. Viryu was an ashen-colored dragon with black spots, and she was a protector of nature. She had lived for centuries, watching over the land and its inhabitants, but she had become increasingly despondent in recent times. The people of Japan had begun to neglect their traditions and beliefs, and this was having a detrimental effect on the land. The rivers were polluted, the forests were being destroyed, and the animals were suffering. Vir...

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“1910” by Fergus Roche

Submitted to Contest #185

Neumann stood on top of the building in the heart of London, waiting for his master to land. It was Spring of 1910, and the light from the horizon smoldered in the early evening, a blossoming line of fire. “Aus dem feuer kamen sie” or “Out of the fire they came”. How many years had it been since that infamous headline stood stark across Berlin, then London, and beyond? When Jörmunwyr and his kind appeared, clawing themselves out from under Iceland, they’d changed human affairs forever. Worry gnawed at his stomach, twisting like a bag...

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“Storage Unit 420” by Douglas W. Carr

Submitted to Contest #185

One fateful night in New Castle, Pennsylvania, an elderly married couple was traveling home from the grocery store when their vehicle was hit by a truck that had run a red light at an intersection near their home. It was determined that the driver of the truck had suffered a heart-attack and had lost consciousness just prior to the intersection causing the violent and fatal crash. The driver of the truck was pronounced dead at the scene and so was the husband. The wife however was transported to the local hospital and placed on life support ...

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$250

Prize money

280

Contest entries

138

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Feb 17, 2023 EST

Won by Lynda Williams 🏆

Title: Jesus and Jockeys

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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