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Start or end your story with the line ‘This is my worst nightmare.’

Posted in Dialogue on Oct 25, 2022

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✍️ 74 stories

Who Am I?

Submitted to Contest #113

It’s the most peculiar feeling in the world… Waking up and not knowing who you are or how you got to where you are, your own body betraying you as soon as it jolts awake, drowning out any attempt at recollective thought with the noise of your unforgetting heart steadily pounding in your chest with reckless abandon fueled by an instinctive sense of urgency.  ‘Get out of here!’ The panicked organ screams out as it throws itself against your ribcage, still acting on the lingering emotion of utter fear from before your mind was transfor...

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Diaries of the Villas of Nassau Bay

Submitted to Contest #113

September 26, 2021 This is my worst nightmare. Two months ago, I had what I thought to be the happiest day of my short 19 years. I signed the lease on my very first apartment. The Villas of Nassau Bay. This was the cutest community I had ever seen. Turquoise buildings surrounded a gorgeously landscaped pool right in the center of the small thirty-unit property.  An old French lady named Helene is the manager and the only employee on the property other than Miguel, the maintenance man. Not only does she manage, but she also liv...

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It’s Only Business

Submitted to Contest #113

A Thanksgiving dinner at my home in Detroit in 1971 changed the course of my life forever. My name is Jack Short and I am the founder and CEO of Atomic Logistics, a company with a market cap of about $100 million and with about 1,000 employees. That particular dinner at home with my family served as the launching pad for my subsequnet career as a tech entrepreneur. Remarkably, I was only sixteen at the time and my path to success was rocky, certainly in those early days. I look back on that particular night with mixed emotions. You need...

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Dorothy's Winter of 1929

Submitted to Contest #113

                     DOROTHY’S WINTER OF 1929 The evening before he died, Daniel O’Hara barged through the door, a dust-bowl storm of rage filling the room. Mary and the children watched wide-eyed, not breathing, waiting for his next move. Cowering in the corner of the kitchen, Dorothy saw her father’s face turn crimson red with violence and hate and knew someone in the room would be his victim, and most likely it would...

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Ready Again

Submitted to Contest #113

This is my worst nightmare. It was the first thought that popped into mind when Chase spotted his ex-fiance taking a seat at a small table mere yards away from where he sat.  A tall male helped her take off her coat.  Still facing away, both ‘the ex’, Rita, and her new whatever-he-was-boy-toy had yet to be revealed in their entirety just yet.  It’s funny how winter can hold secrets under coats and hats this way.  The removal of her jacket revealed what Chase had hoped not to see: his favorite dress.  It was the one s...

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Kooma, 1954

Submitted to Contest #113

This is my worst nightmare. I would love to tell you that I don’t know how the hell I got dragged into this, but I’d be lying. Lying to you and to myself because everyone around this neck of the woods knows that when Mrs Ursula bloody Quartermaine clicks her expensive high heels, people around here jump to attention and do as they are bid.This especially applies to my mother, Lillian. My mother idolizes Ursula Quartermaine; has done since they went to school together. Personally, I can’t stand the woman and never have but, as a 21-year-old K...

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False Awakening

Submitted to Contest #113

This is my worst nightmare. Is what Ethan said to himself when he woke up. It was only a few nights ago Ethan and Isabella arrived. Deep into the dense woods on the Maine mountaintops. Now sitting at the seemingly lifeless body of Isabella in their tent. He desperately tried to wake her, shaking her as hard as he could. It was far too late at this point and he knew she had passed. Trying to look past the tears in his eyes he looked for a cause. Nothing he saw explained any of this. He wondered if he was too rough with her last night. He knew...

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It's Good To Touch the Green, Green Grass of Home

Submitted to Contest #113

Everything was loud and quiet at the same time. The air was deathly still as everyone waited for the jury to finish deliberating. The ticking clock on the courtroom’s wall sounded like miners’ pickaxes against solid rock and I could hear the rush of my own blood in my ears like the waters of the mighty roaring Niagara Falls. My heart beat as deafeningly as a battering ram against an ancient castle’s wooden gates. My pulse raced like a thousand charging cavalries in battle. Despite the cold airconditioned room, I felt sweat form under my hair...

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This is my worst Nightmare! or Das ist mein schlimmster Albtraum!

Submitted to Contest #113

I Off the southwestern coast of California, hidden away at the bottom of the ocean between Terminal Island and Catalina Island is an underwater structure in the shape of an upside-down pyramid. Its color is dark blue and its size is roughly the same as an average two story house you might find on the west side of Long Beach. The tip of its sky blue apex is approximately one micrometer away from fully touching the underwater soil below. It appears to be suspended perfectly straight as if by magic. Arriving outside of it, encased in a dark...

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Great Balls of Spitfire

Submitted to Contest #113

This is my worst nightmare.In retrospect, karma was never something I ever really bought into. I always assumed that it only appealed to people who delighted in the misfortune of those who had wronged them. I can see its appeal as a concept; someone cuts you up on a roundabout and the universe is supposed to flip their car or give them cancer. It has a strong USP. I'm not sure it's really a thing though. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it's all bullshit, how could I know? I just think that the people who really deserve to get shafted...

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Jokes are Half-Meant: Musings, Meditation, and the Pandemic

Submitted to Contest #113

This is my worst nightmare! What is it? The COVID19 pandemic! It’s what most people would call a nightmare – Well, isn’t it? People are anxious and scared everywhere! Maybe we would be more hopeful if we focused on the number of recoveries rather than the deaths from the virus. Yeah, okay, but I mean! We’ve only read about smallpox and Spanish flu in history books. Like, no, that’s history, it can’t happen to us. Like we’re so scientifically advanced to be hit by any pandemic! Well, now we’re part of history, too! Laughs. ...

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The one-time people

Submitted to Contest #113

This is my worst nightmare. Consciousness has come to me for another day. I lift my head up and sigh. I look around, my eyelids heavy, perhaps from sleep, perhaps from the expectations of another long day ahead. I wonder if anything different will happen today. This is how it has been for weeks now, maybe months. I’m not sure. I don’t know why I am here. No one has tried to explain it to me. I am homesick. What happened to my family? Why was I taken from my house? I miss my family. I miss my toys. I miss the grassy backyard with the swi...

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That One Night

Submitted to Contest #113

This is my worst nightmare. I’m being chased by something and I don’t know what it is. I’m running as fast as I can but I can’t get away. I come to a cliff and I have to decide whether to jump or be killed by this thing. I jump and right before I hit the ground, I wake up. Sitting up on my bed, I look at Angie. She’s painting her toenails in a chair by the window. The breeze comes in and blows her hair into her face. She moves it, patiently, and continues to paint. “That doesn’t sound too bad,” she said. “Well, it is,” I said. “When I wake u...

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Liar, Liar

Submitted to Contest #113

Reedsy Contest #262 Dreams and Nightmares C.B. Lee Liar, Liar I am a liar. I have been my whole life. But I'm not sure I am any good at it. I’ve lied about my grades, I’ve lied about my weight (I have the driver’s license to prove it), I’ve lied about who I have hung out with...and I’ve lied to protect someone's feelings. There are many things I have lied about, to cover up truths I didn’t want discovered. So yes, I am a liar. And I have been labeled as such for as long as I can remember.     ...

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La La Land

Submitted to Contest #113

The blueprint of the familiar night sky vanished. Where did the stars go? They were replaced by dense layers of cloud cover.I can't even recall the last time I saw a star. Every night was the same. The sun would set I would step outside gaze up and nothing. I could not comprehend this incongruent new night sky. I hated it. I love the artistry and nirvana the night sky offers. An opportunity to bask in the moonlight and light a fire gnawed at me like a rodent with jagged teeth. It was early July when I caught a glimpse of two stars.They weren...

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