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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

“The Whispering Nightmare” by Tom Treloar

Submitted to Contest #279

I was in this small, quiet town. I was walking down this street and saw this house that had a large sign saying, “stay out Dangerous” It stood at the end of a lonely street, its windows dark and its walls covered in creeping ivy. A cool strange breeze was blowing around me. It appeared to be spooky and haunted by the spirits of those who had once lived and maybe died there.  Being young and stupid I moved into the house. I thought I inherited it from a distant relative and, despite the warnings, decided to make it my home. I was young a...

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“Forbidden err” by Maryna Zhubryk

Submitted to Contest #279

Thinking alone, with myself, I asked myself what I thought about the last forty-three years lived here, on this Earth. Well, I answered myself, I like living here, I really like it and probably that is why I am still alive. Then I added, you know, my dear Marina, the last forty-three years here have been really difficult, having gone through periods when there was no strength left to continue moving forward. For many years I lived with my head down, always walking down the streets staring at the tips of my shoes, as if I had a huge burden of...

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“A Monstrous End” by Andrea Krist

Submitted to Contest #279

"That can't be." Kan stared at the man who had been his... what? Friend? Caretaker? Keeper? Jailer would be a more accurate term today, although none of those terms seemed to really fit the six foot four tower of muscle that stood before him. O--which what how he was known--stood with his thick arms folded across his chest. His stance was rigid, his gaze piercing in a way that told Kan he was not joking--not that O ever cracked a joke. Kan was not sure the man even knew how to. But that was the thing about the Partwo--human words, traits, a...

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“The Man Eater” by Shuvayon Mukherjee

Submitted to Contest #279

Uttarakhand, Northern IndiaSummer1925 The most frightening discovery of the morning was not in fact the spattered blood of the missing boy, but a trail of tracks suggesting it was the Man Eater’s doing. I held Vinu’s trembling shoulders in a firm embrace, his eyes darting back and forth between the blood and the tracks, and all around us the throng of pilgrims shared his slack-jawed, fearful expression.  Nearby, Naresh and the sadhu (I never learned his name, since he referred to himself as only sadhu, though he was far from the only ho...

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“The Shadows beneath” by Madhurima Giri

Submitted to Contest #279

I always had an irrational fear of the dark. Not in the typical sense, where shadows seemed to slither and stretch out from the corners of my room at night, but in the more insidious way—where the darkness crept into my mind. It was a quiet terror, the feeling that something was watching, waiting for me to slip. But lately, that fear had intensified. I could no longer tell where the line between reality and nightmare began to blur. It started innocuously enough—strange dreams, vivid and unsettling. They were always the same; a vast, endless ...

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“Haunt (Me)” by Ana Fiedler

Submitted to Contest #279

The worst person I’ve ever seen is the one that lives beneath the skin of the girl I see in my dreams. She exists as a ghost might, she exists as your worst nightmare might; in fleeting appearances.Seen in reflections only by those who believe her to be there in the first place. You may speak of her on nights easy to come by. On nights you would spend around campfires, bright as the sun viewed through a telescope, illuminating golden fear-stricken faces of foolish children that knew no better. And it would not be wrong for you to assume...

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“The Meaninglessness of Seeking Meaning” by Hunter Whitlow

Submitted to Contest #279

Dear Mary, For as long as I can remember, I’ve tried desperately to make something of my fleeting spark of existence. It became clear to me at a young age that I would never truly become important. Instead, I can say with utmost certainty that, in the grand scheme of the universe, no singular human has ever been, or ever will be, significant. I know I’m no different. And yet, that has not stopped me from clutching and clawing my way toward something greater than myself. I’ve learned all I can and seen all there is to see. I met countless peo...

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“The Serpent's Invitation” by Ronald John MacLennan Jr

Submitted to Contest #279

I have been told I am beautiful. A cruel kind of beauty, the kind that inspires devotion and hatred in equal measure. My name, Isabelle, is whispered with reverence in salons scented with perfume and cigarettes. I belong to them, the women who rule this gilded prison of chandeliers and velvet. Rich, old, powerful, and insatiable. They are my patrons, my jailers, my tormentors.They called it a salon, but it was a theater of cruelty. My role was simple: to be admired, to entertain, to submit. The older women lavished me with gifts and trinkets...

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““Corrie ten Boom’s Courage and the Secret Room” ” by Edward J. McCoul

Submitted to Contest #279

“Corrie ten Boom’s Courage and the Secret Room” By Edward J. McCoulThe small, dimly lit space smelled of dust and tension. Jacob van der Meer, a young man of twenty-one, crouched in the corner of the secret room. The sound of boots against wooden floorboards echoed faintly above. His chest tightened as he squeezed his knees to his chest, his heart pounding so loudly he feared it might give them all away.The secret room, built by Corrie ten Boom and her family in their Haarlem home, had become both a sanctuary and a prison for Jacob. It was a...

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“A Blinding Light at the End of My Nightmare” by Pete Gautchier

Submitted to Contest #279

Prompt: Write a story about someone confronting their worst nightmare. A Blinding Light at the End of My Nightmare“Eddie, it’s bedtime,” momma would shout at me shaking me out of my intense focus as I stared at the television set.  She would add, “I don’t know why I let you watch those shows. You only end up peeing in your bed because of your nightmares.”  Feeling embarrassed in front of my older sister, I would respond in self-defense, “You would get the heebie jeebies from Alfred Hitchcock too!  Momma, he...

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“Ten Deep Breaths” by J. E. Cannon

Submitted to Contest #279

Sensitive content such as coarse language, violence and mental health. I have to fire someone today.  My eyes fly open as I wake. I feel like I have a weight pressing on my chest as it tightens. Great, here comes the anxiety. I lie there awhile before I begrudgingly roll out of bed and ready myself for what I only expect will be a shit day. I slowly make my way downstairs where my husband has breakfast and a coffee waiting.“Good luck today. Remember, you’re a boss ass bitch,” he says as he kisses me goodbye.I sigh. I don’t feel like it ...

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“One Step Away From Freedom” by Michael Danyluk

Submitted to Contest #279

Content warning: Strong language and themes of bullying, physical violence, drug use, and sexual assault.They're always staring at me; Talking about me. Why do I always have to endure their stares and whispers? I hear what they say: making fun of my hair, saying it's long and scraggly, like a girl in a horror movie that lives down a well. Talking about my clothes, how they're “raggedy, and old”.  It's not my fault. I know how I look in these baggy, secondhand clothes. I hear it all.Every day since it happened, walking the hall had...

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“The Shattered Canvas” by Kaden Nail

Submitted to Contest #279

I woke up to silence.It wasn’t peaceful, like the kind of silence you get when everything feels right. No. This was the kind of silence that pressed against your chest, like something was waiting for you to notice it. And that’s the problem, isn’t it? When you’re waiting for something, and it’s not coming.I rolled out of bed, the sheets sticking to me like they were afraid to let me go. The floor creaked under my weight, and for a second, I thought it might give out beneath me. It wouldn’t surprise me. Everything else seems to be falling apa...

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“A Soapy Nightmare” by Brian Adkins

Submitted to Contest #279

Under a brilliant crescent moon, in a small suburban house nestled between two tall oak trees, a young puppy named Rocco stirred in his bed. Rocco was no ordinary puppy. Though barely six months old, his world was one of deep contemplation, rich imagination, and, most importantly, anxiety-ridden thoughts that often spiraled wildly out of control.Rocco, a caramel-furred ball of fluff with floppy ears and wide, expressive eyes, had recently overheard something dreadful.“Tomorrow’s bath day,” his human, a cheerful woman named Kate, had declared...

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“The Raven Caws as the Owl Lands, A Modern Allegory” by Tamara Lieberman

Submitted to Contest #279

Death and War (content)When I was six, my Grandma Dora used to call me her blue eyed pixie.   Little did she know that I was far from a mischievous sprite.  Blonde hair and pigtails on the outside; inside, I was extremely introspective and philosophical, midnight feathered.  My trauma induced fears often surfaced as symbols in my nightmares; I would have the same recurring night terror every time I closed my battle-worn eyes and fell into a deep sleep.  It escalated to the point where I slept on my sister's floor so my mo...

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