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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#206: Phobias

Have you ever had that nightmare where someone is chasing you, but you can’t scream or run away? It’s a pretty common (and terrifying) bad dream, and it always makes me wonder how I’d respond in a scary moment of crisis.

Fight, flight, or freeze? You never really know what you’re going to get until you’re in that moment, staring down the object of your fear — whether that’s losing someone you love, getting stuck in an enclosed space, being surrounded by a massive crowd, or just finding a cockroach in your bathroom.

Fear is a powerful feeling to capture in writing, so this week, join me to study this lightning-bolt emotion as it illuminates the actions of your characters.

This week's prompts

Write about someone facing their greatest fear.

Dramatic – 109 stories

Write a story that contains a flashback of a nightmare.

Horror – 63 stories

Start your story with a character seeing something terrifying.

Horror – 53 stories

Write about a character in a situation where they have to be brave for someone else’s sake.

Character – 61 stories

Set your story in an eerie, surreal setting.

Dark – 87 stories

Stories

“The Forest” by Rena Aliston

Submitted to Contest #206

Gene’s body collapsed against the twisted tree trunk. Hands resting on top of his knees, he stared at the ground, panting for air. “How much longer?” Brooke removed her backpack and tossed it on a bed of leaves. “How the hell are we supposed to know? This was your idea!” My eyes squinted through the thick fog as I listened to them argue. My ears struggled to make out sounds in the distance. “Enough! We’re lost. Regardless of who’s fault it is, we need to get out of here.” We ventured down a dark path. Trees hovered over us like shado...

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“In the Foxhole” by Adam Medlin

Submitted to Contest #206

The younger soldier dug the heel of his boot back and forth in the hot sand. He could get half of his boot buried before he decided he didn’t want any more sand in his socks than was already there. He pulled up on his foot, watched the sand ease back into the size eleven hole, and then started digging again. He had arrived in country less than a week before, so he was in no way acclimated. Not to the heat, not to the sounds or smells, and not to that foreign feeling in his stomach. The t...

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“Die for You” by Kjanela Fawcett

Submitted to Contest #206

The bed dipped beneath him as he sat; he buried his face in his hands. Exhaustion and grief tugged at him. Yvette was at the desk, reading through the reports that had been gathered by his inner circle.He knew what they said already. All the same thing. Oh, they were nominally different. Long, flowery missives attempting to mask their lack of support, to messages lined with vague threats. In the end, it all came back to the truth.What little support he’d had, it was gone. Only the staunchest of the untouched were still siding with him. As mu...

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“Bonds Beyond Blood” by Aarna Vaiyapuri

Submitted to Contest #206

Blood. Gushing down my finger in streams of red, the blood from a wound the window gave me served as a reminder of why I was here. The window had reprimanded me after I’d risked my life to find my father and my brothers. Foolish… it seemed to whisper. Unsafe… go home…And it spoke the truth. A child shouldn’t have to fear being beaten just because of her religion. A child shouldn’t have to find shopping a life-threatening activity. Alas, I found myself ignoring the window’s warnings because, how could I care about myself when Father, and...

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“Lemons” by Mio Simer

Submitted to Contest #206

The sounds from the television reach me in the bathroom; I turned it on to keep Lisa from disturbing me whilst doing the laundry. It always works like a charm - a high-pitched squeal escapes her little body at every suggestion. I don’t think she’s realised I do it more for my own sake than hers yet. Hopefully, she never will. These - among others - are the kinds of things I ponder over when haphazardly shoving soaking wet clothes into the laundry basket: Lisa’s ignorance to my motherly schemes, whether I got the spaghetti sauce out of my wor...

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“The Implant's Demands” by Brian DeHority

Submitted to Contest #206

Sensitive Themes: Physical violence, Suicide Noah sat hunched in his small grey cell, his khakis and pastel blue oxford button down begrimed and wrinkled, drenched in sweat and urine. A regular drip reverberated around the enclosure with each new drop of sweat falling to the puddle he sat in. The only decoration was a single, wooden crucifix bolted to the wall, the form of Jesus, muscled and fair, eternally gazing down at the sorry souls trapped here. Noah's neck creaked as he looked up and out before him, towards the open air of New York ...

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“Step One: Wash Hands” by Breannen Prusank

Submitted to Contest #206

“Is there anything I need to know?”“You’re going to love this bunch. They’ve been the best in years. Keep an eye here. She’s really afraid.”“Afraid of what? School?”“Yeah, not exactly, she’s afraid of getting sick. Do you want details?”“No. I’ll come see you when I’m ready,” Mrs. Ellis said. She liked to get to know her students herself. It never seemed fair that someone else got to give her the first impression of any of them.No past judgment would make any sense this year anyway. It was going to be so different from any of the sixteen year...

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“Hidden Monsters ” by Riley Haller

Submitted to Contest #206

The fog was thick like the pancakes Pa used to make. Alice could still remember how they tasted: that fluffy lightness that Pa had never quite mastered. She missed them. Him. A tug on her shirt broke her from her thoughts, and she looked down to see Clover’s big brown eyes looking up at her. “What’s wrong?” Clover asked, and Alice blinked back, unsure how to answer that question. She managed a smile, a pain aching in her side as she squeezed Clover’s hand. She looked back out ahead of them, at the vast road. A car lay abandoned to one sid...

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“The Light, The Helper” by Anisa :)

Submitted to Contest #206

"Breathe. Just breathe with me," On the bed, her chest rose and fell with a calm labor that echoed in the room. With every breath the room seemed to freeze entirely — the wind ceasing its cascade through the window, the birds stopping their overjoyed birdsong — only for this passage of time to continue with the flow of her breath as it exited her chest, and when it reentered, each time as slow and inconsistent that death lingered at the edge of the bed with his head lowered but body tense, ready to pounce. There was nothing in the wheeze...

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“The smog” by Jelly 1010

Submitted to Contest #206

The Reverend Potter’s and the victims The dark night was cold and distant in the Luxe desert with only the purple flames from the factory vents being the only visible signs of heat, it feels like a rising uptake of the nightly warrens. A damnable ritual that takes the luck from people you truly hated, a nightly sight these days. The issue with hate is that it makes no sense, and it has both an inferiority and superiority complex. Hate comes from a fear of someone better will come along and ruin the myth of hate’s inherent superiority. T...

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“All I have is the wind” by Robert Hart

Submitted to Contest #206

The wind’s susurration in the abandoned streets, the distant hiss and drag of the shingle beach are my world. The long dry fountain in the square hosts no bird, no lizard. Through the drowse days, the sun chases limping shadows through my laneways, beneath my arches. Still sleeping, a shiver rouses me partway from the doze; recognition trembles at the edge of consciousness, but sensation sinks to emptiness. The breeze fades and the moon pursues softer shadows. Lulled by the steady breathing sea, the fleeting itch fades, a phantasm of lonelin...

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“Demons in My Sleep” by Vladimir 4757

Submitted to Contest #206

Wandering aimlessly, chased by hounds, in a forest of thick witch hazel, you run, you dash, you dart. Breathing, panting, your breath falls as darkness kisses your eyes. You faint, you awake, where are you? In a clearing? Somehow, you’re safe, the hounds gone, where did they go? So far away, they howled in the dark, beckoning to their brothers. But as you stumble, gasping for air, the smell rank, clinging to your lungs. Gasping, breathing, hurrying, blood rushing, you clamber to your feet and there b...

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“Where's Norm?” by Corinne Arrowood

Submitted to Contest #206

Where’s Norm? By definition, they referred to “it,” meaning me, if one were honest, as rare, odd, “special,” psychotic, abnormal, and my all-time favorite syndronomous (maybe a fictitious word meaning with a syndrome, but it sounds like something they would say, and if not actual, I speculate it should be a word, the way it rolls off the tongue, yes?) No matter how it’s been painted, the strokes have been cruel, unkind, and lacking introspection, definitely void of compassion or understanding. Thus, my safe zone remains under the desk, vo...

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“The Infinite Wisdom of Great Mother” by Renee Maxdon

Submitted to Contest #206

The man’s bloodshot eyes dart wildly around the dimly lit cellar, spittle flies from his chapped lips as he grunts, and his strength wanes as he strains against the black iron shackles. Sunlight spills through the grated window but it is too weak to warm the dank stone floor. The room is drafty, thick with the tang of the sea, but it is spacious and impeccably clean. The man appears not to see me, or at least register me as a threat; my small stature, advanced age and gender tend to have that effect. I take in the sight of him. The atte...

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“Nothing Left” by Chad DeMasse

Submitted to Contest #206

You get out of school on a Friday. It’s the last day of school, and it’s hot. The summer had just begun. You're hanging out with some friends at a pizza place. It starts to get into the evening, and you decide you want to go to the mall to meet up with some more friends. You get up with your friends and walk outside the pizza place and you realize something is different. Everything seems empty. You turn around and....your friends are gone. The pizza place is empty. The lights are on, but the place is empty. The smell of the food is still the...

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$250

Prize money

373

Contest entries

130

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jul 14, 2023 EST

Won by Parul Shah 🏆

Title: Shameless

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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