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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#60: Face Your Fears

This week is a special edition of the Reedsy Prompts contest because our friends at IndieReader are taking it over with their own theme, prompts, and bonus prize! We'll let them take it from here...

 

Hi! Amy from IndieReader here. If you’re not familiar with IR, we’re one of the original (paid) review services for self, hybrid and independently published authors, providing professional book reviews since 2009, in addition to unique marketing and distribution solutions.

 

We know that 2020 has been a memorable (aka stressful) year for many. According to experts, one of the recommended ways to manage stress and anxiety is by thinking about what scares you most and then writing about it. So fittingly, this week’s theme is post-apocalyptic stories.

 

Don’t worry if that doesn’t sound like your genre, as we’ve written 5 prompts below that work whether you’re into that kind of thing or not. So pour a glass of wine, take a few deep breaths, and start typing. And we wouldn’t be surprised if, after you’re done, the world around you doesn’t look so bleak. At least there aren’t any zombies!

 

(As a bonus prize, the winner of this week's contest will receive a discount code for 20% off an IR Pro Review.)

This week's prompts

Write a funny post-apocalyptic story.

Funny – 110 stories

Write a post-apocalyptic story that features zombies.

Science Fiction – 178 stories

Write a post-apocalyptic story triggered by climate change.

Adults – 134 stories

Write a post-apocalyptic thriller.

Thriller and Suspense – 144 stories

Write a post-apocalyptic romance.

Dystopian – 196 stories

Stories

“If it takes the end of the world” by Kaylynn Lee

Submitted to Contest #60

When the world goes dark, no one thinks about anything except survival. I had always been the type of girl to be found lost in fantasy worlds. Books, movies, games, and even dabbling in some writing. It all filled my head with all sorts of unreal happenings, and left no room for reality. I didn’t mind. In fact, I preferred it that way.  Reality is messy. Without ever really knowing what someone wants from you, or how they expect you to interact with them. Every situation is filled with choices that could potentially destroy your lif...

3 comments 3
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“Demons Outside... And Within Me” by Em P.W.

Submitted to Contest #60

Tick-tock. Tick-tock. That’s not the clock on the wall – that thing’s long run out of juice; it’s the one in my mind counting how much time remains for me. Sitting at my once-school desk, I examine the items laid out in front of me: two empty rifles; a gun that I just dug out of the basement; my mathematics textbook, covered in dried blood because that was the best weapon I could find as I returned from school (who says math won’t come in handy?); half a stale piece of bread with a memo lying atop it; and a water bottle brimful of rainwat...

9 comments 9
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“Every day in the park” by Luis Grammont

Submitted to Contest #60

I was waiting for the sun like every morning since the day I sprout. He was rising between the hills, letting his rays spread across my dying branches; some of them with a few dried leaves. It has not been the same warm feeling as it was before. Everything changed since the slow walkers, or zombies like the humans called them, appeared. Before, everything was better. I used to be in a great crowed park, full of life and green. Before the sun rose, people were already running or jogging around with their dogs. The birds would come to chat on ...

2 comments 2
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“Fall” by Jessica C

Submitted to Contest #60

When she was six years old, Sunny Newsome watched a man die. She had just snatched five bucks from Ma’s straw purse and was hiding behind the pork barbecue truck when it happened. He dropped right there on the carnival midway in front of the World Famous Elephant Ears stall, and for a split second the world stopped. And then a crowd began to form around the dying man, and that crowd collectively stared while he sort of flopped around at their feet. Finally a woman stepped forward to help, but by then it was probably too late.  And ...

4 comments 4
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“Waste land Rambler” by Maurice Mullen

Submitted to Contest #60

Hank rode slowly through the vast sea of emptiness that stretched out endlessly before him underneath a blistering sun set high in a cloudless sky. As Hank rode, he thought about the last time he had seen a cloud. Had to be before the war he thought. Everything had changed after the war. The water had all but disappeared, food was scarce, society had fallen apart to be replace with bandit warlords who ran everything, and worst of all the world was overrun with fierce undead creatures that were the unfortunate by product of the war. Ever sinc...

2 comments 2
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“The Beauty of Bravery” by Ry G

Submitted to Contest #60

After the apocalypse, nothing was the same. Aliens had discovered Earth, and they tried to destroy us, but we fought back hard enough to defeat them. Sadly, some lives were lost, but our planet won in the end. After this apocalypse, Earth would never be the same again.My best friend, Liv, is the strongest person I know. She fought as hard as she could during the apocalypse, saving so many lives. She is also extremely beautiful. God, she’s gorgeous. I woke up this morning on Liv’s couch. I slept at her house last night because both of ou...

2 comments 2
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“What's dead should stay dead” by Zainab Shahid

Submitted to Contest #60

Azel felt a jolt. And his reality changed again. He was in his chair doing his homework, and now he was in the grocery store. He was so scared and confused about what has had been happening for the past two months. Coming back from the grocery store sitting in the car, he felt another jolt this time, he found himself in college attending his class. At that very moment, Azel figured out that from time to time, jolts have no impact on his position but influences his surroundings. Indulged in his thoughts, Azel saw the word "Accident" in his no...

5 comments 5
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“The Isle of Bones ” by Aisa M

Submitted to Contest #60

It all started a few years ago, one morning as the sun was about to shine on this lush island when the early risers found tons of fish on the shore. Some dying. Some desperately trying to live. They all lied on the shore covered with blood and greenish-black slime.  The Island Chief came and saw the blood bath. He touched the slime and smelled it. He looked at all the blood-shot eyes of all the dead fish lying on the shore that is enough to feed the islanders for months.  He gathered all the islanders. There were just about thr...

13 comments 13
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“The Unwalking” by Ari .

Submitted to Contest #60

I’m not stupid. When Teddy never came back from his supply run, I knew — I knew it! And four years later there he stood, staring directly at me from across the lot, his face half-eaten and gray and dead. The pharmacy stood quiet and tempting. Tall shadows wandered in the tinted windows. Unlike the thing that used to be my brother, they hadn’t caught my scent yet. That was the only thing keeping me from bolting for the pharmacy — that it hadn’t moved at all since I fell in range. You’d think the shell of my idiot brother would have the br...

0 comments 0
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“Dread Day Part 1” by Daniel Reardon

Submitted to Contest #60

I live in a world, where everyone has a clone. A clone who could end up being your best friend. Or maybe A clone who could accidentally swap places with you. Or perhaps A clone who could take your own family hostage just to spite you. No matter what personality your clone has it’s always going to be there. It will never go away, not until you die.  You see, a clone and it’s human are the same. You can’t have one without the other. The moment your eyes meet, your destinies are intertwined.  By now you are probably wondering how al...

11 comments 11
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“The Demo birds.” by Musfirah Bushra

Submitted to Contest #60

She stood up, reaching out to cover her daughter’s sleeping form on the couch with a blanket. One hand still clutched her phone, and as she lowered her eyes to the screen, her husband’s face stared up at her. It had been three days since he had last called, and Janet’s heart was now contracting with fear, scared he had sneaked out and something had happened to him. She couldn’t call him herself, due to insufficient balance in her phone.She sighed deeply, the wrinkles around her eyes lined with worry and exhaustion, as she stood up to make he...

15 comments 15
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“A short in joint” by Philip Ebuluofor

Submitted to Contest #60

He was born on August, 56 years ago.when he was young, His education stopped at year two in secondary school. He joined retail business on his own after about three years of hustling, Looking for customers for other trades and taking commissions. Initially, lt looked as if he was making it but his show off life style wasnt helping his saving. He was living way off above his income. He was ladies man, training some girls in school with hope of future marriage. When his money finished, he was told by some of the girls he was catering for ...

1 comment 1
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“Mr. Unknown” by Chandrika Menon

Submitted to Contest #60

What is love? Some say, “love is infinite”…whereas for some “love is life,etc”… Everyone have different opinion about love. But what is love exactly, which is still unknown to all of us. Based on the type of people, their thinking, circumstances, the definition of love is concluded by all of them. In short, everyone has got their own definition for love. Some often say, “mine was true love”….& wind up in sorrow. While some do just burst into laughing out, “no yaar, it was just an infatuation”…& go on enjoying in airs flirting for res...

4 comments 4
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“We Never Thought it Would happen in a Million Years” by Blane Britt

Submitted to Contest #60

Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Gore was Bill Clinton's running mate in their successful campaign in 1992 and the pair was re-elected in 1996. Former Vice President Al Gore called Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz a “climate hero” Friday the 13th. When Gore introduced the governor at a three-day event in Minneapolis tied to The Climate Reality Project (The Climate Reality Project is a non-profit organization involve...

0 comments 0
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“The rain of destruction!” by Utkarsh Srivastava

Submitted to Contest #60

It was the most awful and nerve-racking view of the most beautiful island in the world. In a blink of eyes, everything shredded. The island was no more beautiful and the tranquility sickened. The breathtakingly made, the world-famous monument Donjon Emerald had mixed with the soil now. And left only the blanket of dust, destruction, and disaster. Almost two days had passed, the dust particles would come in every breath stroke, the wind was whipping up the eddies of dust, and the vision was a blur — the sky couldn’t be seen. Nothing...

9 comments 9
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$50

Prize money

762

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Sep 25, 2020 EST

Won by Ruth Midgley 🏆

Title: Unpaving Paradise

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 | Many Hands | 2024-09

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Prompts | Many Hands | 2024-09

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