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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#58: Lights Out

Whether it’s a summer storm or a blizzard, we’ve all had the “pleasure” of going about our day when suddenly the lights flicker out. No matter what you were doing before, it’s fair to say your plans are now disrupted — and may be for quite some time.

In the modern era, electricity is the backbone of pretty much everything we do. From keeping our food fresh to helping us stay connected, it powers our daily lives. These days, it’s even how many of us get to work.

This week’s prompts invite you to consider what happens to your characters when those routines are broken. Do they flounder, or do they thrive? And what lengths will they go to in order to return to normal?

This week's prompts

Write about someone who purposefully causes a power outage.

Thriller and Suspense – 146 stories

Write a story where the power goes out on a spaceship or submarine.

Adventure – 86 stories

Write about a character who’s stuck in an elevator when the power goes out.

Thriller and Suspense – 252 stories

Write a story about someone feeling powerless.

Narrative – 284 stories

Write about a family who decides to camp out in the back yard during a power outage.

Funny – 111 stories

Stories

“The Lady Next Door” by Julie Ward

Submitted to Contest #58

The shaking started at three a.m. It was the roar beforehand, like a freight train coming through the walls of her bedroom, that pulled Anita from a deep sleep. A dawning realization that the whole room was moving, like a ship on stormy seas. She sat bolt upright, then thought better of it and curled her knees against her chest, trying to be as small as possible. Another big jerk. The mattress felt like it was being tossed around by a petulant toddler. The kids cried from their rooms. Down the hall. A million miles away. Their...

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“Evacuating Hurricane Laura” by Monica Chaddick

Submitted to Contest #58

Wednesday, August 27, 2020 found my entire town staring into the face of Hurricane Laura. At this point, she was predicted to be a Category 4 when she came on shore. We already knew that she would plow clean through Cameron like a hot knife through butter. The prediction said we would be next, and dead on, too. A mandatory evacuation had been issued for Lake Charles, Louisiana where myself and my family lived. I gathered my eight and nine year old grandchildren and m...

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“The Slow Evolution of Lilac” by Charlie Howell

Submitted to Contest #58

We aren’t alive so we didn’t understand when our creator died. Business went on as usual for several days. When he didn’t move out of his bed, we figured this was something humans, living people, did. It was Lilac who figured it out. He hadn’t eaten any of the food she’d brought, and she compared the rot on the fruit beside his bed to what was beginning to grow on his face. I work in the gardens. I understand that when fruit begins decomposing it will return to the Earth. And t...

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“Going up, Going Down” by H. W. Autumn

Submitted to Contest #58

“AAH!”The floor beneath me lurches. The elevator comes to a screeching halt. The lights flicker out. People around me scream in terror as the elevator shakes in place.The lights are out, but it’s not completely dark. Outside the back window of the elevator, the sun taunts us, slowly slipping down the sky. An eerie crimson light floods the elevator as the sun peeks from behind a cloud.All around me is the chaos and terror and screams of people. I can feel the control around me slip out of my hands, like a wet bar of soap. Slipping and sliding...

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“TWO-FACED” by 𝔞𝔰𝔥🤍 𝖔.

Submitted to Contest #58

If only I could be transient, of and out of this world, I wish I could be as spontaneous and swift as the wind, sifting through leaves and dreamcatchers. I've never been able to change my situation, I may be seventeen, but it feels like my world is crashing, and like I'm the reason for it, the catalyst to this social experiment. Maybe I AM the catalyst to the explosion that is my life. *** "A strong friendship doesn't need daily conversation, doesn't always need togetherness, as long as the friendship lives in the heart, true frien...

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“Going Down” by Greg Gillis

Submitted to Contest #58

It was a stressful day at the office and Samantha was trying to tie up a few loose ends before she left for the day. Her job as Executive Secretary to one of the most successful investment brokers in the city had its ups and downs. Her days were always non-stop most of the time between answering phone calls, running personal errands for her boss, and sorting through the mounds of paperwork that had now formed a small wall around the perimeter of her desk. &nb...

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“Let's Be Maeve” by Maahi Shah

Submitted to Contest #58

'Spring and Fall' the most depressing poem ever to be known is all 16-year-old Maeve could think of. Everyone thought her life was glorious and worth living. But nobody knows the truth about oneself any more precisely than the person. Maeve had two sides to her story- one was the one her peers had written of her, or rather drawn the image of her that she was intended to follow. Another was the truth- something she believed about herself and the mere fact of her being.The story of little Maeve starts on September 4th 2004. The day Maeve Sande...

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“Muriel’s Night Outside” by Roxie Piatigorski

Submitted to Contest #58

It was Labor Day in Sausalito and a young African-American woman named Muriel Bentley decided to do something special; she decided to host a barbecue cookout in her backyard that she happened to share with her Sephardic Jewish-American wife named Velma DeMayo-Bentley, their pet Corgi named Sandy and their kids named Avery, Veronica and Montclair, respectively. However, Muriel had adopted Montclair after his mom had to give him up while Avery and Veronica were Velma’s kids from her first marriage to a Russian-Jewish man named Grigori Rublikov...

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“Feast or famine” by Arabella Watson

Submitted to Contest #58

Creatures of the night rendered powerless in Covid 19 Melbourne Lockdown stage 4 Melbourne has been a city shut down, the residents are suffering under the strictness of Stage 4. Many suffering severe mental health issues, unemployment, alcohol consumption s rapidly rising. Many people are feeling powerless at under siege by an enemy they cannot see. A virus that has sapped the life out of the city and its people. Once the world’s most livable city it is now a husk. A shell of its former self. Whilst many people are ...

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“Time's Up, Power's Back” by Sᴇᴀ Ғᴇʟɪᴢ

Submitted to Contest #58

You would expect his letters home to be the scary ones. He was the one who had been sailing to all extremities of the compass for two years. He was the one working missions for the government that were all kinds of grey. He was the one that didn’t have a friend on board 90% of the time to back him up in a fight. And yet, it turned out that the one thing that made him most afraid was receiving a letter from home.Dearest Durie,We miss you already. I didn’t anticipate how lonely I would feel with you gone, but I’m finding the biggest problem is...

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“Camping In The Dark” by Trinity Womack

Submitted to Contest #58

[Before I begin the story, I feel I ought to introduce the characters. This story is about the Simons Family, all fictional. The parents are George and Cordelia. They have three children, a sixteen-year-old daughter named Stephanie, and two, twin seven-year-old boys, Zayden and Hudson.] Stephanie shut the door of her room and flopped on to her room. Why must her family always be so loud. Her brothers, Zayden and Hudson were playing some game on the tv. Her mother was simultaneously ...

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“The Switch” by Alwyn McNamara

Submitted to Contest #58

"Shovel?" asked Big Freddy as he started the engine. "It's in the trunk with the rest of it," replied Jake in an exasperated tone. He was sick of Big Freddy expecting him to always be a fuck up. He looked out of the window, trying to maintain his composure. They drove silently, heading out of the city limits and down the freeway towards the town of Sierra. Neither of them spoke for a long time until Jake leaned forward and turned on the radio. A loud obnoxious pop song filled the silence. Jake recognised the song from hearing his pre tee...

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“Stages” by Lina Oz

Submitted to Contest #58

I didn’t see the moth at first. It is small. It matches the color of our roof shingles above me: dark and dreary and gray. I have never liked moths. I don't despise them, to be fair; they’re just, simply, irritating. Flapping and buzzing around, occasionally diving toward one’s head, inducing screams and gasps of horror. They’re a nuisance to the world. And I have never enjoyed their presence. So, I certainly do not appreciate this particular moth as I sit near the porch fire, warming my hands inches from the blue flames. I jerk backward...

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“"I wonder at times"” by Philip Ebuluofor

Submitted to Contest #58

He went abroad to make ends meet. The economic environment here in Nigeria is nothing to write home about. There is no more any group referred to as middle class. I wonder seriously what our so called leaders are doing to allow the situation to deteriorate to this pitiable level. The result of course is always mass immigrations to other countries. That was exactly what led Jerry to Asia, China to be precise. He went to China with plan of returning back in two years time no matter his economic status. It turned out to be the case of man propo...

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“Offline” by Josh C

Submitted to Contest #58

Hughes looked out of the cockpit as they exited hyperspace, the planet popping into view ahead of them. Planet 52ABX-32QJ was a desert planet. He slumped in his chair. On joining up as a deckhand on the deep-space courier he had a very different idea of his future; one of finding new planets that would bear the future of the human race, discovering beautiful all-female alien species and fighting off vicious, savage bugs against impossible odds. So far he had seen nothing but sand, ice and rock. Rocks in particular, he had now seen in every...

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$50

Prize money

879

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Sep 11, 2020 EST

Won by Julie Bissell 🏆

Title: In the Dark

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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