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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#215: Monstrous

Monsters have haunted the human consciousness forever. Or, more specifically, for as long as we’ve had the ability to wonder what might be lurking in the darkness. They might have teeth, claws, and an insatiable thirst for blood. But not all monsters are made like this. Some of them look just like you and me, and that makes them all the more terrifying. 


So then, what makes a monster? Is it outward appearance or terrible deeds? Where’s the line between monster and human anyway? Because sometimes, the fanged beast might be less of a threat than the familiar.

This week's prompts

Write a story about someone trying to resist their darker impulses. Whether they succeed or fail is up to you.

Dark – 100 stories

Set your story in a haunted house.

Horror – 70 stories

Write a story about a monster trying to become more human. Or about a human trying to become more monstrous.

Thriller and Suspense – 60 stories

You confront the monster you’ve spent many long years hunting. Except they’re not exactly what you thought they’d be…

Adventure – 45 stories

Write a story about someone making a deal with the devil.

Dark – 112 stories

Stories

“Nine Steps to Jeeves” by Suma Jayachandar

Submitted to Contest #215

When my gait freezes, I gently kick the trash can. What wouldn’t I give to trash all these dementors hovering around my foggy brain. But now, that is not important. Kicking the empty plastic trash can is. Whatever little tension my frayed nerves can conjure must be directed at it. It is my only hope against falling on the floor and breaking my teeth. Or bones. Again. The trash can is my shining Patronus. I try to summon the warmth of the morning sun on my back. And the squirrels that roll around the trees on the campus as I walk on crisp w...

12 comments 12
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“How to Kill a Mockingbird” by Jimmy Creole

Submitted to Contest #215

A narrow lake glints like a knife in the distance, wedged into dark, snow-dusted mountaintops flashed through with sheer rock faces. The road and its gravel shoulders snake upward, looping lazily through cloistered huddles of squat buildings, the town trickling down from the mountain like a little stream. Mabel stands before an old barn at its base, breathing into her scarf and braced against the bitter mountain air, rifle in one hand and a little blue Government-issue handbook titled ‘Guide to Paracausal Creatures’ in the other that she use...

3 comments 3
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“The Great Serpent's Manor” by Nusaiba Hossain

Submitted to Contest #215

No matter who you are or what you are, if you enter this manor you will not make it out… How scary could it be? I questioned myself laying on my bed submerged in my unusual but nearly useless thoughts. Turning to my side I saw the huge manor situated at the top of a hill. Far away from the neighborhood, yet people still think each full moon, it releases bad omens upon the village.  My parents were ghostbusters, they travelled from country to country to hunt down ghosts but never dared to even talk about the ‘Great Serpent’s Manor’, ...

6 comments 6
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“Thirteen Days” by Nori Shimada

Submitted to Contest #215

“Thirteen days?” I was unsure I had heard him correctly. “Yes.” The man before me spoke in an authoritative tone, but not entirely unkind. Well, perhaps “man” was too broad of a term. Although he wore his dark features well, there was something off about the way they were composed that made me believe him when he told me he was from down there. Dark, raven hair slicked back from his finely chiseled face fell just below the chin. His amber eyes glinted almost yellow in the dimly lit room, and I couldn’t quite be sure of the shape of his pupil...

3 comments 3
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“A Good Old Fashioned Ghost Story” by Cade Holter

Submitted to Contest #215

The House on Bascom Avenue didn’t look haunted. Not by any stretch of the term. It was just another cookie cutter suburban home among its ilk, a drab and uninspiring two story home that was one of many built to dam the flood of people that had been moving to Noxbridge in the past few years. When we stared at the thing during the day, it was just a modern gray townhouse, built for maximizing space at the cost of being nestled into the centre of other homes. You couldn’t pick the thing out if you had wanted too. We weren’t there during the day...

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“I Bleed Dust” by Joshua Copus - Oxland

Submitted to Contest #215

Wheels roll and furniture scrapes across my surface. The stomps of steel toed boots vibrate through each and every floorboard of mine. The shouts and laughter of removal men and the blaring of hard rock music reverberate on my walls for hours. They are always so violent. Once they are gone, three little pairs of shoes, one pair of brogues, and one pair of heels enter my home. A new family has moved in. It fills me with the promise of humans eating breakfast, lunch and dinner, making memories, watching television, reading books, and adding ne...

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“To be human” by Eddie McKenzie

Submitted to Contest #215

There was something so terribly, wonderfully different about them all, and he knew that he was not like them. He knew this in the same sort of way that one knew that the sun would rise the next day or that the worms would pick a skeleton clean, and so he did not question why it was that they were all so very different from him. The answer was perfectly simple after all, he was a monster and they were not. They were not born with the same sort of darkness to them that he was, the same desire to claw and tear and destroy until there was nothin...

2 comments 2
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“Shadow of the Grim Reaper” by Carolyn Mahnke

Submitted to Contest #215

The Shadow of the Grim Reaper    I am watching you. My shadow hangs over your life, waiting for the right time to meet with you again. Ha, I was cheated out of a chance to carry you home…but that has turned out for the best as I was given a chance to read the story of your life and even interact with it.     Oh no, the shadow of the grim reaper… I fear this image of my own death… hovering over my decaying body and lingering sense of self.-worth. I have been watching you for so many years. Los...

1 comment 1
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“The Monster” by Amy B

Submitted to Contest #215

warning:this story has physical violence, self harm and inappropriate words The Monster I can’t believe I came here again. Every night for a month, driven by my soul to return to this spot. Like a flame I cannot resist. Even though I know it is wrong. ********** A young man peeks out of the blinds, drawn closed an hour ago. He knows where she is. He has watched her pull up every day and stare through her window. Some nights she has her phone light on, aimlessly flicking through her apps. Some nights she opens a book and turns on ...

2 comments 2
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“In death there is only death” by Marie Perederii

Submitted to Contest #215

Pain shot through her shoulder, the blow was overwhelming even for Sira, she gritted her teeth and stood back up to face Karim grinning at her as if she’d just handed him his wings. Well that look wasn’t going to last long, the match had just started and she was not going to let her one chance to become a true demon slip away into Karim’s grasp, especially not Karim. So she stood and swung her staff in command, instantly the spell worked its magic, knocking Karim out his weapons reach, which stood leveling him on the base of the arena. Which...

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“The Barter ” by John K Adams

Submitted to Contest #215

‘Moby is dead.’ Jacob stared at his goldfish floating in its bowl. Tears streamed down his face. He was six. He’d heard the word ‘death’ mentioned on TV, but this was real. Searing pain cut through his world. ‘How can this be?’ His mother, Joanna, came to his bedroom door. She understood his sorrow and tried to console her young son. “But why, Mom? Why?” “I’m sorry Jake. Some things can’t be explained.” She thought, ‘Especially when you don’t understand.’ Joanna stroked Jacob’s hair, cooed loving phrases and offered to help lay Moby to r...

6 comments 6
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“Below The Surface” by Peter Stone

Submitted to Contest #215

By Peter Stone "Jennifer, why exactly did we move here again," asked Dennis who for the third time that morning had to close the basement door. The Hobbs were a young couple that just wanted a change from the hustle and bustle of the life they experienced in New York. They both had tried to have children with the past partners but we’re never successful. The thought of going through life without a child was turning Jennifer into a nightmare for Dennis. There wasn’t a day go by that she didn’t look up fertility clinics on the internet. “Jen...

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“The Wisps on Copacetic Lane” by Georgette Sandoval

Submitted to Contest #215

Veronica-Amber had no recollection of her first encounter with the Wisps. They came as inconspicuous and unexpected like flurries of indoor dust that float and fly when bathed by a sheen of sunlight. At the beginning of their residence at 315 Copacetic Lane, just before their street transitioned into the main road in town, her home knew a time when it was vacant of the Wisps and the only specters filling the inside were the projections from the old films that her father would display on the dark velvet walls of the house. The walls of t...

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“Maabeloff's Transition” by George Georgerfrost@gmail.com

Submitted to Contest #215

When Gustav looked in the mirror, it was always the same.  That monster that he loathed was staring back at him with those marble black eyes.  His reaction was always the same, a groan of disgust would rise in him until he could no longer bear looking at his own reflection. It was an accident.  A horrible, senseless accident had turned the child prodigy into this disgusting creature who was forced to wear a mask when he went into public which wasn’t often these days.  He had played the palace at St. Petersburg in front o...

3 comments 3
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“The Broad Strokes” by Joe Smallwood

Submitted to Contest #215

“Some people start talking to themselves whenever I am around,” I observed one fine Saturday.“How so, Peter?” my wife replied while she checked the firmness of a Cucumis melo reticulatus, otherwise known as a muskmelon or cantaloupe. “Too firm, that one,” she said, rolling it over to grab the one that made her smile.“See what I mean?” I huffed.“I was talking to you, not to myself!” Into one of her numerous cloth bags that melon went.We should have gotten a cart. Goodness knows how heavy a load I would have at the grocery checkout. And I woul...

4 comments 4
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$250

Prize money

387

Contest entries

135

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Sep 15, 2023 EST

Won by Danielle Barr 🏆

Title: What Kind of Mother

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!

Prompts | Big Blue Hand | 2024-11

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