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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#252: Obsession

The Netflix series Baby Reindeer, inspired by a real-life stalker story, has garnered millions of views over the past month while receiving both critical acclaim and heavy backlash. In the show, a chance encounter between a barman and a total stranger descends into a chaotic tale of stalking, destruction, and mutual obsession. Delving into themes of personal boundaries, power dynamics, identity struggles, and mental health problems, the show depicts some of the complexities and contradictions inherent in human psychology.


Inspired by Baby Reindeer, this week's prompts are an invitation to explore some of the nuances of human behavior. Whether you write a witty story, a heartwarming tale, or something tense and gripping is up to you!

This week's prompts

Start your story with a character being followed.

Dramatic – 99 stories

Write about a character who struggles to do the right thing.

Character – 35 stories

Write a story in which one of the characters is a narcissist.

Character – 39 stories

Make a character’s obsession or addiction an important element of your story.

Dramatic – 129 stories

Write a story that includes someone saying, “Be careful what you wish for.”

Character – 55 stories

Stories

“Truth and Justice” by Justin Diaz

Submitted to Contest #252

A cacophony of child laughter and stomping of feet filled the small suburban street as small kids in all manners of costumes scurried about filled with excitement about what this time of year brought. A time of scary movies, fun costumes, spooky decorations adorned every house and most important of all to any kid during Halloween, all the free candy. All the while the parents walked behind and alongside their kids hoping that all this running around would tire them out before bedtime and allow them some peace and quiet for a brief amount of ...

5 comments 5
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“Sisters” by Rachel P. Singleton

Submitted to Contest #252

Our story was writtenThe moment you met meThe good and the badBut our mistakes to haunt meYou were thereI looked up to you dearlyYou were my sisterI wanted a buddyWhen you got me some candyFor when I got some shoes and started tyingOr when I gave you a peppermintWhen you were cryingBut the sad fact isFor all the good times I rememberI don't know what to believeBecause my memory was flipped overI saw the day you leftAnd then you came backI was confusedBut I didn't askWe tried to better ourselvesCome closer to GodGet you a manThat was a little...

2 comments 2
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“Can I Ask You Something” by Ralph Aldrich

Submitted to Contest #252

It’s a quiet Sunday evening, and as usual, Bob and Betty are sitting home doing nothing in particular. Bob places a bookmaker in the journal he’s reading and exhales slowly. He wants to talk to Betty about a subject but is uncertain how to broach the subject. After all, they are always home on the weekends because Betty doesn’t like going out or having anyone in for a visit to chat or play a game. Betty doesn’t like games. “They’re too competitive.”  Besides, she doesn’t like Bob’s friends but has none of h...

7 comments 7
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“The Robin and The Raven” by Valerie LunaNix

Submitted to Contest #252

“Hey! Thanks for having me. You’re looking good,” Devon extends a heavy wrapped gift as he enters. My lips are pressed into a cracked plaster smile. I carry his gift past the Bluetooth record player, past the navy and silver birthday streamers and balloons, past the array of finger foods, to the back bedroom of my apartment. The room is dark. A mound of gifts looms on the dresser in front of the mirror. In the reflection, I see the lump of my roommate in bed. “Robin, you’ve got to get up. Nearly all the guests are here.” “I can’t.” “It’s you...

1 comment 1
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“Amelia” by Joe Smallwood

Submitted to Contest #252

“You’re the cream in my coffee,” said Amelia, her brown curls wistfully falling. Ever deeper, down, down. “And I thought we would be together in what might be forever!”Vincent, who couldn’t be anywhere else, did his best.“It's always you!” Amelia's voice rose, her face contorted in a pout. “Which can be construed as maybe or never! I despise you!”Vincent tried to pout. It was an exploration that neither interested him nor could be ignored. “Oh, to be me!” he said.The vast ocean, its waves ceaseless, decided it was not in anyone's interest to...

2 comments 2
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“Pretty Eyes” by Gina Grissom

Submitted to Contest #252

Pretty Eyes The bar was noisier than Terrence would have liked. There were a lot of people, plus a live band. He ordered a beer and sat down, watching the crowd. People were laughing, talking, and dancing. They barely glanced at him. He blended. Holding his hand up, he waited for the bartender to notice him. “Might take a while,” said a voice to his left. Terrence turned and was face-to-face with a dream. A woman with deep blue eyes, twirling a lock of her dark chocolate-colored hair with one hand, smiled at him. “It’s busy in here.” Ter...

1 comment 1
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“Restoration ” by Benjamin Khoury

Submitted to Contest #252

It was June when my grandfather died. I didn’t have a great relationship with the man. He was something of a recluse, and I only really saw him on the holidays. I was told he died from a heart attack, but it was hard for the coroners to tell with the state of decomposition his body was in. It took months before he was discovered hunched over in his study. An IRS agent was sent to his home after several warnings about late taxes. They finally called the cops after their knocks weren’t answered. The foul stench of decay could be smelled from t...

8 comments 8
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“Did I Win or lose? ” by Robert Rawson

Submitted to Contest #252

No this isn’t real?! It can’t be! I must be having a nightmare, thought Chris, they were two nil up with ten minutes left, they are the best team in europe!! Manchester City hadn’t lost in over twenty games that season, however, after conceding a scrappy goal against Burnley with little time left in the game and losing a player to a red card for the protests towards the officials, which Manchester City regarded as a handball in the build up to the Burnley goal, Chris’s bet hanged in the balance. His other three betting selections had all tri...

4 comments 4
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“Vititi Fames” by Chloe Jones

Submitted to Contest #252

The tide was brash and roaring, as it always was out in the great blue whirlpool where I had found myself a frequenting neighbor. Upstairs, on the deck, I heard the muffled shouting of scraggly men who had wasted away their years forming thick calluses on their hands and thicker hunger for beer and brandy. They paid me mind, sometimes, only when I had to come up from my forsaken little hole of damp barrels and barnacle-infested crates to scrounge for sustenance and drink. The brutes, well… they were a far contrast from those I would have rat...

2 comments 2
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“The Fantasy of Oblivion ” by Asa P

Submitted to Contest #252

At the bottom of the bottle she found no genie, no answers to her burning questions, and no cure to the gnawing ache that threatened to consume her…….no peace at all for her troubled mind, only the void of oblivion.“Hello, Papa.” She said mechanically as she accepted the call. “How are you?“I’m very good, my daughter. How are you?” Her father responded.“I’m fine.” She said flatly.The silence lingered peppered with an unasked question.What do you want now?She heard him sigh and braced herself.“I don’t know how to say this so I’ll just say it ...

5 comments 5
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“I'm Well Enough to Know - Or am I?” by Carina Caccia

Submitted to Contest #252

We had Janine and Bill round yesterday, not that I wanted them in the house. I couldn’t tell John no, but what was he thinking? The last time we were on the verge of separating, he told me it was as though he and Janine had known each other all their lives. It’s not that I’m in love or anything, he’d said, not that I’d asked.John’s at work and so I’m writing in the kitchen. I don’t really want to sit at my desk in the bedroom – it throbs with last night, with the echo of John’s voice, and despite the tall windows, the sun on the floorboards,...

12 comments 12
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“Nightime Melodies” by Michael Mackenzie

Submitted to Contest #252

The music was the sound of someone dying. That’s what I heard my first night in the new apartment. It was two in the morning and I lay next to a cum stained mattress left by the prior tenants, eleven empty bottles of Modelo that I hated myself for drinking because it worsened by headaches and no one in their early forty’s should drink that much, and a brown bag that held 3 debit cards equaling $300 minus the cost of the two six-packs.              Why that much? Becau...

0 comments 0
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“Happy Mail” by Stephanie Melissa

Submitted to Contest #252

I feel a jolt of dopamine as I shuffle through the mail and come across an envelope with an address I don’t recognize. No letter opener available, I haphazardly tear it open. Inside is a simple card that reads, “hi!” on the front. As I open the card, a page from a Word Search puzzle falls to the ground. I race to catch it before the breeze blows it away and make my way towards the house.Josh doesn’t even glance up from his Xbox as I enter the house. I pause for a second and consider whether I should exit the house and reenter through the bac...

3 comments 3
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“In The Garden” by Beth Cohen

Submitted to Contest #252

Sam was elbow-deep in freshly churned soil when they spotted a glimmer out of the corner of their eye. As they turned, the fairy froze and stared back at the gardener.When the fairy realized it had been caught, its wings drooped. “Oh… puff.” Sam blinked. Their eyes were still bleary from a midday nap, and they itched for a smoke, but neither of those things could trick Sam into believing there was a fairy when there wasn’t. The little sprite had a mop of mushroom-colored hair and a defeated expression. “Oh,” the gardener said under their bre...

1 comment 1
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“Be Careful What You Wish For” by Sharon Schoneveld

Submitted to Contest #252

Be Careful What You Wish For Clara stumbles into the sanctuary of the girl’s bathroom. A respite from the taunts, the bullying. Gripping the sides of the hand basin she gazes through tear-filled eyes at the image that confronts her. Hits her as hard as the spiteful, hurtful words from the other girls. The chosen ones, those with perfect skin and shiny blonde hair. Those with perky breasts, still surging into womanhood beneath the school uniform but obvious enough to those who choose to look, to notice, to ogle. She s...

3 comments 3
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$250

Prize money

357

Contest entries

143

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - May 31, 2024 EST

Won by Danielle LeBlanc 🏆

Title: Seven Hundred and Thirty Days

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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