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#79 The Family You Choose

They say blood is thicker than water — but is it always?

 

The truth is that not all families offer healthy relationships to each other, and sometimes the harsh act of cutting them out of your life may be the best course of action. Fortunately, we can still meet people who love us no matter what and become our new families. Not to mention adoptions, blended families, and all the wonderful ways people connect with and support each other, regardless of whether they share any DNA. It's fair to say that family is a lot more than blood!

 

This week, we’re going to turn family life upside down and examine all the ways that family succeeds — and fails — for our characters.

This week's prompts

Write about someone who decides it’s time to cut ties with a family member.

Sad – 259 stories

Your main character is approached by their long-estranged parent who wants to reconnect. How do they react?

Dramatic – 193 stories

Write about someone who discovers the only family member they have left has just betrayed them.

Sad – 159 stories

Write about two characters who’ve gone through something so intense they now feel like family.

Adults – 189 stories

Write about a “found family” who are finally able to get together again after a long time apart.

Fluff – 100 stories

Stories

Mission Accomplished

Submitted to Contest #79

“Wanna try again?” “Why not? We have nothing to lose.” Blythe and Katharine stepped out of Blythe's car to get to school on time. It was a chilly October morning, the leaves on the trees were bright flames like the tops on a candle. It was the 49th day of 7th grade as they’ve both been counting. Blythe and Katharine both have gotten bullied many times, together and separate. They made a resolution to try and overcome that, to stand up to the year-long bullies that had ruined their lives. They tried every day, so far they have only failed...

71 likes 156 comments 156
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Lacuna

Submitted to Contest #79

Things were never the same after he left. Grandma Kanye told me that people didn’t have a choice of whether they wanted to leave or not, but this was a different kind of leaving. Somehow, I never really wondered about Grandpa Johnson, but it was enough waiting for my first howling moon on that to-be-perfect midsummers’ day.  Grandma Kanye always said the moon was full like the roundest pearl in all the seven seas on a howling night.  “Why do they call it a howling night?” I would ask, though I already knew the answer.  T...

70 likes 12 comments 12
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Names

Submitted to Contest #79

I believe names have power. Laugh all you want, but sometimes I put people into groups based on their names. Names have colors and personalities that grow to represent the person who is using the name. Although, to be honest, I think names don’t belong to a specific person, they belong to everyone. They're borrowed, from the day we’re born to the day we die. But everyone knows some famous ones: Karens are snobs, Kellys are blonde, Janices are savory. But our story starts with two names. Timothy and Kaylee. I have only ever met one nice Timot...

70 likes 101 comments 101
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I never saw it

Submitted to Contest #79

Azra's POV The serum made it easy for the words to tumble out. The guilt that had chewed away every moment of happiness for three months finally bit through flesh and poured out. I saw the scene again, us finding Calvin, and knowing I had done it. I took a deep breath and let the truth come out. "What they don't want me to tell you, is that-" Nathan jumped to my rescue, immediately interrupting. "Dad, let's go question Lieutenant Marcos, he's probably waiting for us-" Edgar raised a clawed hand, his brow creasing. "Quiet! Finish what yo...

69 likes 5 comments 5
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Apartment 34

Submitted to Contest #79

I don’t know who I am. I know my name, I know my age, the way to work, the way to my apartment, but I do not who I am. I was born alone. Physically with people around me, but with people I never knew, I’ve never met, talked with. I do not have a memory of a face that brought me into this world, who was fondling her stomach until the very moment I was born. Scars spread around my body, invisible, but not painless, pain me every time I try my hardest to bring the memory of the scent, touch, the feeling of that someone who was patiently waiting...

69 likes 34 comments 34
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Run for it (Part 8 of Mutants Versus Witches)

Submitted to Contest #79

"What do we do?" Elysse asked, her voice strained. Beside her, Harry was crouching, bandaging up her ankle. Devon dragged over two rusted metal chairs. "How did they find us again? It keeps happening! And now how are John and Fiona supposed to get out?" I scanned the streets outside, straining my eyes to check every window. No matter how well we hid, this abandoned construction site was only going to be safe for so long. "Is anyone using their powers? Harry, start talking." I moved away from the door cautiously, taking one of the chairs...

69 likes 11 comments 11
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Seperated (Ashlyn's POV)

Submitted to Contest #79

Author’s Note: This is a collab I did with the awesome author Katelyn Howell. I put her link in the comments below, please check out her part (Addie’s POV) and the rest of her amazing stories. She is going to continue this story as a series, so that explains the ending. Thanks for being here, I hope you enjoy it. Have a spectacular day!☆☆☆I’m woken up in the morning by the chime of a text on my phone. I dizzily pull myself out of bed and snatch the device from my bedside table, swiping it open. One message shows up on the top of the home scr...

66 likes 243 comments 243
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Blood Is Not Everything

Submitted to Contest #79

The ringing of the doorbell jerks me from my slightly uncomfortable sleep on the sofa. I brush the hair out of my eyes and get up, wobbling on my feet. The doorbell rings again. I yell that I’m coming, finding it a bit weird in itself that Mom would ring the bell more than once. She had once waited almost a half-hour outside the door for me to finish a shower, it was quite unlike her to ring it again within the span of a few seconds. Opening the door, the back of my mind pokes at me, telling me to have looked through the peephole. ...

66 likes 3 comments 3
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Until We Meet Again

Submitted to Contest #79

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is inspired by a song. Comment below if you know what song it is!!! (I included some of the lyrics in the story!)Content Warning: Includes suicide ***************************************************************************** She raced through the woods, her arms and legs pumping as fast as they could. Twigs and fallen logs tripped her, but she dare not stop, for if she did, she might not have the strength to get back up again.Tree branches swiped at her, tearing into her flesh, but she only embraced the pain. It gav...

63 likes 77 comments 77
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Never Apart Again

Submitted to Contest #79

No.  No, no! It can’t be true. I won’t believe this. No. ★★★ I glance at the photograph I held tightly in my hand. I feel my hands getting sweaty, a bit moisture. I try not to get too emotional, but...it’s hard not to.  I control my tears, but it looks like they’re not listening to me. I felt my eyes getting heavier and heavier. Now, my eyelids cannot hold all that water in my eyes. They drip down, and onto the photograph. Drip! Drip! Drip! Now, my hands taste a bit salty, but I don’t really care. I quickly wipe my tears off my han...

62 likes 33 comments 33
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shards of summer

Submitted to Contest #79

"The girl whose heart was winter melted into the ocean," The water felt like glass. It shattered where it met the shore, like so many broken bottles. Fae liked how it cut sharp X’s into her skin and pecked cool O’s on her neck. She lay supine on the border where the sea diluted into the sand, drifting at the edge of parallel worlds. The stripe separating them was frothy and poorly drawn as if scribbled by a child with peeling crayons. Maybe that was why the waves had no sense of boundary, spilling outside the lines. Leaving wet kisses and th...

61 likes 34 comments 34
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My time's up

Submitted to Contest #79

Stella's POV It's strange to think about it now. Betrayal, such a loaded word. But I knew this day was coming, my hurt is only a fraction of theirs. It all really started when I was little. My parents, Eadie and Nicolo, were murdered by a rebel commander. That same rebel commander decided to take me in, a small act to make up for the cruellest thing he could have done. He raised me, never knowing that I knew, I knew what he had done. At the age of 9, I was finally given my instructions: remain a sleeper agent in the rebel cause unless ...

60 likes 4 comments 4
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Amy's Promise

Submitted to Contest #79

Amy groaned in pain as she came out of her unconscious state of mind. She licked her dried, cracked lips, it tasted blood. Her eyes were black and swollen and her vision was blurred. Her throat was parched and her tongue felt like cotton. She was completely delibitated and desperately longed for water. She heard a scratching sound probably a rat, she thought, but was too delirious to even get scared. She tried to focus her gaze in the direction of the sound b...

59 likes 22 comments 22
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A Betrayal of Thievery

Submitted to Contest #79

The sirens blared in my ears as I crouched behind the counter filled with jewels. I twirled the small brass key in my hand, my twin brother breathing heavily next to me, smiling tightly. Jeremy and I had grown up in an old rundown orphanage together and had been released just a few months ago, as we had turned eighteen. The classic baby-left-on-the-orphanage-doorstep. We were the living incarnate. No note attached, no money, no names. Just Jeremy and I in a beige basket made of twill. Only days old.We grew up in the orphanage ...

58 likes 10 comments 10
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Noemi

Submitted to Contest #79

Her hair was as blonde as the sun, and her eyes as silver as the moon. She wore our usual black dress just like everyone else at our school, but the way her sharp chin and bright eyes contrasted with it, she was as beautiful as time itself. She smiled, and curtsied right then and there in front of me, leaving me only to blink. My own hair was as red as a lion’s mane, or perhaps a dying tiger lily. My eyes looked like little olives, in both shape and color. But somehow, she had chosen to curtsy to me.  “Hello,” she said, her smile br...

56 likes 91 comments 91
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