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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write a story about someone confronting their worst nightmare.

Posted in Dark on Nov 29, 2024

Submissions are closed

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✍️ 62 stories

“Life, and Death, and Squirrels ” by Raquel King

Submitted to Contest #279

"God damn it Melody, get it together!" She said to herself, as she spilled used coffee grounds around the perimeter of the trash can. She hastily cleaned them up with a Clorox wipe and thought about how she wished she was less clumsy. Melody assumed that she'd be better at mornings by now, but she was truly a night owl and that was never going to change. However, this particular Sunday, she had promised herself, and her dog that she would get outside at a reasonable hour and do something constructive with her time. She parted the curtains an...

2 comments 2
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“Bloody Mary” by Kathryn Minicozzi

Submitted to Contest #279

I was half-asleep and annoyed, but that’s no excuse for the crazy thing I did. It was a case of mental age regression. It was about 3:00 AM on a cold, windy October night. The super had not yet turned on the heat, and a traveling cold front had made it necessary to pull a wool blanket out of storage and wrap myself in it. I had been sound asleep in my homemade cocoon until my bladder woke me up. I lay in bed for a few minutes, until the situation became urgent. I unwound myself from the blanket, stepped onto the frig...

3 comments 3
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“La Fin...” by Ken Cartisano

Submitted to Contest #279

Apprentice Technician Broog Titus scanned the layout of the control room, then took a seat at his assigned station. The only other seat in the room was occupied. The apprentice glanced at his counterpart’s uniform, noting his insignia, and extended an appendage in greeting. “The name’s Broog, Broog Titus.” They bumped appendages. “Jeegan Throll. Nice to meet you, Broog.” They were two mid-level techs, it would seem, in a remote corner of a utilitarian universe, with one hell of a view. They both leaned back in their seats and ...

2 comments 2
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“Ancylus, Ancylus, Ancylus!” by Deimantas Saladžius

Submitted to Contest #279

His bare feet slapped against the mud-covered stones. The stick probed cautiously, checking for hidden traps, making sure everything was as it seemed. The guiding glow of his lamp illuminated only a few steps ahead, leaving the rest shrouded in the void’s black field. The path twisted, left and right, unpredictably. Windbreaker Zilvinas moved quickly yet carefully. Running recklessly was dangerous, even though the mosquito swarm’s droning grew louder behind him. Suddenly, without time to discern if it was his mistake or a planned glitch, th...

3 comments 3
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“Where the Darkness Rises” by Letisha Ward

Submitted to Contest #279

Not like this. It couldn't be like this.   The water was cold. Dark. A murky abyss that held horrors unknown to all but God himself.   Maple's feet slipped as she tried to pull herself further up the shelf. Her vision was limited, all light lost to the void that was gradually filling the space.   "Tyler!" Maple yelled. The name had been screamed so many times that it was now nothing more than a near inaudible rasp, and just like the times before there was no reply.   "No, no, no, no...

1 comment 1
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“Sleep, perchance to dream” by Nickneal Writer

Submitted to Contest #279

This story contains personal information about mental health, that some readers may find difficult to process. It is said that sleep is needed so that the cerebral fluid can wash away all of the waste products of neurochemicals deposited between synapses during the waking hours. This purging of the fluid that surrounds the brain flushes away all wasteful and repeated thoughts and enables the brain to renew itself, establish new connections, abandon old ones. Dreaming may well be the result of this washing away, as new connections are formed ...

1 comment 1
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“The Bunker” by Gant Laborde

Submitted to Contest #279

The fourth day was when everything started to fall apart. It wasn’t the food, though none of us had much appetite left. It wasn’t the stale air, even though it clung to us like a second skin. It wasn’t even the radiation gauge Hank brought back; its needle was frozen in the red zone. It was something else, something unspoken, shifting like haunting shadows in the corners of the bunker, a growing realization some of us might not get out of this alive. We didn’t talk about it. We played Monopoly instead. Hank cheated to keep Zelda in the gam...

2 comments 2
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“A Vicksburg Homecoming ” by Robert Wilson

Submitted to Contest #279

   A Union divided by war preys on the nerves and civility of its citizens.  Daily war-reports posted to the door of the telegraph office, shoved frantic mothers forward, squinting and searching for a name with their finger - praying it wouldn’t be there.  Before the ink of one casualty list could dry, another list would be posted.  Like spinning a loaded chamber in a game of Russian Roulette, the unknown kept Vicksburg on edge.      Gathering for news from the front,...

5 comments 5
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“The Eulogy in Me” by Uncle SCotchy

Submitted to Contest #279

There they all were…Everyone was there.My mom’s whole side of the family, or what was left of it, in the Mount Nemo Jewish Memorial place or whatever. The venue for funeral services off of Bird Road at the Jewish cemetery.Pretty full room, I gotta say.And it was worse than I thought. I had pictured it for years now.This was the place we were my pop and I were thinking of doing the service for my mother’s passing.Her name was Sande Garcia…or Sandra Alva Atkins, at birth.But now, 15 years later, it’s for my Uncle Marty.I’ve known him my whole ...

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“Surrender to the Nightmare” by A Vittoria

Submitted to Contest #279

**This story contains teacher perpetrated psychological child abuse** Winter of 2006 was the start of a string of winters that McKenna wanted to forget. As she sat down in the cold concreted prison-like covered area of the oldest building in the school, McKenna’s mum was having words with Mrs McConnell about bullying. She had said nothing of the sort to her mum, but unbeknownst to McKenna, Leonie’s "mum-senses” were tingling. ‘What’s your mum doing here?’ Bec asked as she walked over to McKenna.‘Talking to Mrs McConnell about bullying,’ she ...

2 comments 2
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“The Veiled Woman” by Matthew Foster

Submitted to Contest #279

Jessica lay in bed, sweat staining her pillow and sheets. The bedroom was a chaotic mess, dirty clothes indistinguishable from the clean ones strewn about the floor. The ceiling fan creaked in a steady rhythm and she was thankful for the white noise. It drowned out the silence, which could be deafening at night. The silence was almost as bad as the darkness. Although she was well into her twenties, Jessica’s small room was lit by a soft night-light in the shape of a crescent moon. The darkness had a way of creeping up on her, and if she wasn...

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“The Granite Cliffs” by Raye McLaughlin

Submitted to Contest #279

My eyes opened, suddenly, pulling me from my sleep in an instant. I looked around my room, wondering what had woken me up, but all was still. The moment I closed my eyes again, a sound came. Click! A pebble hit my window. I sat up, wide awake now, and looked at my alarm clock: 1:00 a.m. . Blinking away the last remnants of sleep, I stood and walked to the window. It’s Probably a serial killer waiting to kill me victorian-style. I mean, who throws pebbles at a window to get someone’s attention this century besides a cereal killer? The thought...

8 comments 8
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“No Escape” by Paul Hellyer

Submitted to Contest #279

I hate being locked up in this place. And I’m not even crazy. This place is the Karibu psych ward, and I’m in here for what their calling a psychotic episode. The night when I came in, I was walking home in the rain, when I started to feel things. My thoughts were being read by a whole group of people, and I could feel each and every one of them staring into my mind. They were all asking me questions: “Who are you?” “Why should we choose you?” “What do you know about us?”Soaked and chilled as the storm belted do...

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“Your Daughter Will Save Four Lives ” by Veronica Hues

Submitted to Contest #279

**Sensitive Content Warning* This story is about the death of a child. Themes include drunk driving, organ donation, and obviously death. I cried the whole time writing it, then I cried some more editing it. It’s truly my worst nightmare and I almost didn’t want to write it for fear of manifesting it. If you choose to read this story, thank you. If you’ve ever experienced the death of the child, words can’t express how sorry I am that you had to live through that. ** I never wanted to be a mother. That sounds bad but it’s not like I was agai...

6 comments 6
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“Hate is the new oil” by PL Ormosi

Submitted to Contest #279

The commute home is the worst part of my existence. The residue of the time I thought I remembered from when I was a kid, or maybe when I was some other kid travelling with his parents, mum and dad always used to talk to strangers on the train as if they’d been old friends. The residue, which stirs a horrible soup of cognitive dissonance and shame. Nobody talks like old friends anymore and nobody cares that I’m left with this indescribably shaped hole, and the emptiness that blackens my mind and ruins everything, and makes it really hard to ...

0 comments 0
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