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A character clings to a ritual until it transforms into something unexpected or dangerous.

Posted in Dramatic on Oct 3, 2025

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✍️ 37 stories

The Quietest Room

Submitted to Contest #323

They called me the Architect of Nightmares, which was a title I'd earned through eighteen novels and a Bram Stoker Award I kept on the mantle like a trophy buck. Julian Croft. The name alone sold books. But late at night, when the house settled into its creaking silence, I wondered if anyone would buy the stories without it. I was 48 when I created Argent. The Weekly Crucible was nothing. A tin-pot online contest run by some literature graduate student out of Portland, with a fifty-dollar prize and maybe three hundred entrants on a good week...

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The Janitor and The Machine

Submitted to Contest #323

The first time I used the machine nothing really happened at first. I just stepped out of the pod a minute or so after the lights shut down and everything seemed the same. I mean, I didn’t really know what to expect. I was just curious. But when I woke up the following morning I was three inches taller and almost thirty pounds heavier. All muscle. I didn’t know what to think but I definitely got some strange looks when I arrived at work that day. It’s not a coincidence that I took the janitorial job at CalTech. For some strange reason I was ...

20 likes 26 comments 26
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Neon Shards on Slauson

Submitted to Contest #323

The court behind the shuttered elementary school wasn’t much. Two busted hoops, chain-link fences sagging like tired shoulders, asphalt cracked into a map of places no one wanted to go. Stray dogs padded along the edges, sniffing at chip bags and broken bottles. Shoes dangled from the power lines, swinging like trophies no one claimed. But when the streetlights hummed on—two working, three dead, one flickering red—the place became an arena. The Cracks’ arena. They weren’t much of a team either. Dented helmets, sticks taped together from scra...

19 likes 5 comments 5
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Couch potato

Submitted to Contest #323

His ex-wife, Denise, took everything including most of the cookware. Except for one sheet pan which is how this all started.Marcus started with a single baked potato every evening. No butter, no sour cream or salt. He appreciated the ritual of consistency in a life that had become unmoored after the divorce."Potatoes are perfect divorce food," he told his sister when she visited that first month. "Filling, cheap and you can't mess them up."She'd laughed, but he'd been serious. In a world where his wife had left, his job had downsized him int...

19 likes 11 comments 11
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Grandmother

Submitted to Contest #323

*SSSNIP*A lock of hair every night. Liam was told to cut a lock of his shoulder length brown hair, put it in a jar, and place it on a small table in his closet every night. They were never very big snips. Just a few hairs alternating sides so that it was never noticeable. He never questioned why he had to do this. He just always did what his grandmother told him to do. And every morning when Liam opened the closet door to look at the jar, it was empty. He also never asked his grandmother where the hair went. He just knew that it kept her ha...

15 likes 2 comments 2
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The Woman on the Train

Submitted to Contest #323

I first noticed her on the train a little over a year ago, and from that very first moment, she left a lasting impression on me. She looked stunning, with a look that was both eye-catching and effortlessly elegant. Her style was a wonderful blend of trendy and casual, showing good taste. Her demeanor radiated poise and grace; she carried herself with natural confidence and ease, as if it came second nature to her. She appeared calm and self-assured, creating a composed and likable presence that naturally drew people in. I found myself unable...

15 likes 9 comments 9
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Praise Lemach!

Submitted to Contest #323

Lyros stood huddled with his fellow priests, encircling a stone mound, with a flame bursting from a basin in its center. Their thin cloaks did little to shield them from the stone cold of the cavern, and the torch did very little to warm them. The flame was not strong enough to ward off such a deathly cold. It merely provided an orange light that cast dancing shadows on their hooded faces. Only their mouths were visible.Lyros looked at the mushroom in his right hand. It was pale green, with a slender stem, and a small cap. The stem was sligh...

12 likes 5 comments 5
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Poster Boy

Submitted to Contest #323

I can’t risk writing them down.My thoughts, I mean. Like cracking my ribcage open for the world to peek inside. So I release them every night after dinner, when almost every faucet is running, the TV or radio or both are blaring, the dishes clinking, my foster siblings squabbling with their parents.Our parents.“They want me to call them ‘mom’ and ‘dad’,” I told him with a sigh, tucking my knees to my chin and pushing my toes under my rumpled duvet. “I get it. But I just want them to care about me, not fold me into their cake. The blackberry ...

10 likes 6 comments 6
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The 4:44 Alarm

Submitted to Contest #323

The 4:44 Alarm (by Theodore Homuth) The first time it happened, Evan thought it was coincidence. 4:44 a.m. — red digits glaring in the dark like a wound. He rolled over, groggy, half-dreaming, and listened. The house held its breath around him. Wind tapped at the windowpane. Somewhere in the walls, old wood creaked. He checked the locks anyway. Front door — latched. Back door — latched. Garage — sealed. Windows — tight. He went back to bed, shivering at the absurdity of it. What kind of man wakes up before dawn just to touch cold ...

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Death Spiral

Submitted to Contest #323

There are ants circling on my kitchen counter. A death spiral, I think it's called. They go around and around, in hurried little circles. Rushing to nowhere. I stand and watch them, motionless, as they scurry around on the filthy granite. Thick rings of coffee stain their surroundings, like drops rippling in water. My arms reach out to pour a coffee. The mug, with it's "World’s Best Mum" design gradually chipping away, is brought to my lips. I burn my mouth again. It only just healed. I should kill these ants. Get the spray and exterminate...

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The Vow

Submitted to Contest #323

Every day I make a solemn vow and every day I tell a solemn lie. The vow is supposed to act as some form of new dawn, an impetus if you will, to encourage myself to better things. Every evening I fail and every morning I make the same vow. I know what I am, I know what I am supposed to do and I know I have certain responsibilities. I know all this. It doesn’t matter though. My heart is barely in it and is shrivelling into a barren, drying prune. When you’re like me getting out of bed is scary, going out of the front door is scary, seeing peo...

9 likes 2 comments 2
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Poison Pen

Submitted to Contest #323

My father read the daily Births/Deaths/Marriages with more focus on the middle column. Seeing a name he recognized, he would shake the mothballs out of the pocket of his only sports jacket, slick his hair into submission – with the exception of the cowlick that he willfully cultivated - and attend the funeral to pay his respects.Mostly.I remember vividly one time he returned home whistling happily, greeting my mother with a beaming smile.“Did your horse come in?” my mother asked dourly.“Jim Cruickshank’s funeral,” He poured a bourbon from th...

8 likes 1 comment 1
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The Rituals We Keep

Submitted to Contest #323

Morning light creeps through my curtains. I promised Mom I would be up by now. I reach for my phone.I shoot upright, alert now. It’s 7:32 am. Why didn’t my alarm go off? I must have turned it off during fall break.Great! So much for promises. I dump cold eggs and bacon into a zip bag and rinse the pan. Mom never lets me go to school hungry. I place them into my backpack to eat on the bus. As time slips away, I mutter:“Where is my jacket? Oh great, I can’t find my books…” I only have 5 minutes now. I open the front door and pause. I feel t...

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Wandering Eye

Submitted to Contest #323

CW: Suicide or self harm, Physical violence, gore or abuse, Mental health Darkness is just beginning to weave its spell on the world when I climb out of bed. Gripping the banister, I make the slow trek down to the rear hall. Left foot, right foot, slide hand down the rail. Left foot, right foot, slide hand down the rail. The way a small child would do it.I pause halfway down, listening. Down the hall Marthe snores, and I relax. She worries that I sleep all day only because she assumes I also sleep all night.Thrust upon me by inconvenienced t...

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The Resurrection of Jeanie Turner

Submitted to Contest #323

From the notes of Arthur Grimwald: It is inconceivable what I have done resurrecting a young woman apprentice named Jeanie Lee Turner. In my alchemic ritual of raising someone from the dead, I have unleashed powers that I cannot control even as a master wizard of the tenth degree. There are times when I have a mortal fear of the powers I have brought forth. “Please have a seat, Mr. Grimwald.” The police officer ordered as I followed him into an interrogation room. Already seated was a man in a suit and tie reviewing the notes I had written...

8 likes 2 comments 2
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