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Begin your story with someone either being followed or following someone else.

Posted in Dramatic on Oct 18, 2024

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✍️ 51 stories

Mistress of Doubt

Submitted to Contest #273

Darn it! The Old Hag is following me again! I just can't, not after yesterday. Another day like that, and I'm finished as a writer.Doubling my pace, I cut through allies and shops, but I could still hear her high heels clicking behind me. Five shops and three alleys later, the clicking finally stopped. I pretended to look back at a passing bus to confirm I lost her.Darn it! Still there! What have I done to deserve this? Unlike me, she wasn't even sweating. It was ridiculous! Instead of looking frazzled, she looked like she came from a glamou...

51 likes 29 comments 29
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The Book-Seller

Submitted to Contest #273

“I know you’re there, Snicket.”The hobgoblin peeped around the old oak tree. “What? Hmm… what?”Hattie stopped walking and turned to look at him. “You may as well come out.”Snicket sidled out from his hiding place and looked around, feigning surprise. “Oh, Hattie. Didn’t see you there,” he said, pretending.Hattie raised her eyebrows and put her hand on her hip. “Really? You’ve been following me since the market.”Snicket looked down at the ground, kicking his feet in the dust.She sighed. “What is it you want this time?” Hattie put down her pil...

30 likes 18 comments 18
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The Matchmakers

Submitted to Contest #273

"So, have you ever tried following someone, you know, without them seeing you?" Theo asked to break the latest awkward silence."That's stalking…" Katie, the psych major seated across from him in the Cafe at the Loren let her silence hang, as if accusing him of some unspoken crime.Theo had thought her shy at first, but over the past 20 minutes bordering on infinity, he'd come to see that she reveled in these painful pauses. Like some self-satisfied boa constrictor, she'd squeezed the life out of every attempt at conversation while staring wor...

29 likes 14 comments 14
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A Grander Mechanism

Submitted to Contest #273

I had read somewhere that when private detectives follow someone, they watch the feet rather than the back of the head, so the subject won't sense they are being watched. This is similarly taught in the SAS and in martial arts for when approaching an enemy from behind. So, I supposed I could at least rest assured it wasn’t a PI, special forces, or a kung-fu expert whose eyes had been burning a hole in my back since I left the restaurant.It was an early evening in late November, and the back streets of coastal Portsmouth were as grey and empt...

27 likes 8 comments 8
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The Shadow Man

Submitted to Contest #273

The mind can be a dark and twisted place where shadows can take on a life of their own. I was being followed by death, and death showed itself as shadows. On this particular night, those shadows stretched longer, slipping into cracks and crevices of bark and earth like a cockroach scuttling for refuge.  Among the encroaching gloom and obscure shapes was a man waiting and watching, and though I couldn’t see him from the heavy dusk, I knew his eyes were glued to me, glued to my house. He had been following me for some time, and I knew he...

23 likes 2 comments 2
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Shame

Submitted to Contest #273

This story is based on recent, documented historical fact which some readers might find upsetting. Will is keeping his distance from an older woman who’s walking along Bishop Street, using shop fronts to keep from the rain where she can. A cathedral looms in the foreground, a mid-Victorian structure which lacks the grace of earlier temples by simply trying too hard. Everything is damp, grey, driving monochrome. He had been hoping to catch up with her when she left her home, but the flat Georgian frontage in a terraced, pastel street, of...

21 likes 11 comments 11
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The Stalker

Submitted to Contest #273

Suri pulled her coat tighter as she hurried down the dark, rain-slicked street. The chill October wind whipped through her hair, carrying the musty scent of wet leaves. Streetlights cast eerie yellow pools on the glistening sidewalk. Suri's heels clicked rapidly as she walked, echoing off the brick buildings lining the narrow street. She couldn't shake the feeling of being followed. Suri glanced over her shoulder for the hundredth time, seeing only shadows and empty storefronts. Still, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She quicken...

18 likes 2 comments 2
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Shadow

Submitted to Contest #273

I saw her several days ago. Only I refused to accept what I was seeing. She was careful, but not so careful that I wouldn’t be afforded the sight of her. Some of that care added something to her steps. She was slowed by her caution.  I didn’t have such a burden, and so I closed the distance between us over those days. That was when I had to do something about the sight of her. Think about what it was that I was seeing.  She was older than me. Something in her gait spoke of those years and there was a weariness in every movement. I ...

15 likes 6 comments 6
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Goodbye

Submitted to Contest #273

“Alex, come on. You promised me a date to the movies. I told you I didn’t want to do this again,” Silvia whined, tugging on my arm. She shivered. The chilly October night made her breath fog in front of her. “We will,” I assured her. “But first we do this.” I held up the Ouija board I had tucked inside my coat jacket. “You haven’t stopped complaining about it since we met, and who better to help you face your fears than your own boyfriend.” I smiled at her, taking her hand in mine. She gave me a look of hesitation in return, biting the tip o...

14 likes 0 comments 0
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The closeness of shadows

Submitted to Contest #273

Shirley had known Agatha for as long as she could remember, inseparable since infant school. So when Agatha suddenly disappeared that June without a word, it felt like Shirley had lost a part of herself, and the months that followed were filled with heartbreak and unanswered questions. But then, five months later, Agatha came back, just as suddenly as she’d left.Shirley was thrilled to begin with, her lifelong friend had returned to their small town and everything that had been disturbed was now slotted back into place, but things ...

13 likes 0 comments 0
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Run Rabbit Run

Submitted to Contest #273

Run Rabbit Run Trees were my only memory. I wandered through the woods for so long that all I remembered was fighting my way through branches. I had to reach a destination, although the location and my purpose were long since erased.I had hurt my head so badly that I forgot myself.Time was irrelevant. Not tired, nor hungry or thirsty. Day and night were indistinguishable. One foot after the other. Stay ahead of... what? Was someone chasing me? I just knew I had to keep going, hold back another branch and move onward.Onward?No. Stuck. Fl...

13 likes 1 comment 1
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The New York Retreat Weekend

Submitted to Contest #273

Maggie looked behind her again. The sidewalk was empty. But she was sure she’d heard footsteps. The feeling had been with her since she got off the train at Penn Station for her annual theatre re-charge weekend in New York with her soul mate Iris. There are just a lot of people here, she told herself, compared to Eugene, Oregon. So, it makes sense that you’d feel someone behind you. The trouble with that was that no one was there. An empty sidewalk in New York was a strange thing, and most unusual. She stopped under one of the sad, dust-encr...

12 likes 1 comment 1
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Doppelganger

Submitted to Contest #273

DoppelgangerLee KendrickDetective Sergeant Inspector Cummings of Scotland Yard was assigned to follow the man fifty yards in front of him. The man wearing a grey Macintosh raincoat with a brown fedora hat was known to Interpol as a master criminal. But why he was in bombed-out East London puzzled both Interpol and Scotland Yard.The man crossed the road walking towards the ruins of what used to be a pub and some shops. He seemed to be in a hurry. He then climbed on the rubble of the bomb site. Fifty-five-year-old Cummings followed, climbing b...

12 likes 0 comments 0
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No Honour Amongst The Living

Submitted to Contest #273

Someone was following Isha Sava. She could feel the presence trailing behind her, steady and deliberate. The streets of Enreth were quiet at this hour, the market long closed, and only the occasional clink of distant bells broke the stillness. It wasn't just anyone following her—this was someone who knew her habits and knew where she liked to disappear. Isha had spent too long surviving to ignore such signs. She slipped through the narrow alleys with ease, her dark cloak blending with the shadows. The city had not changed since she left the ...

12 likes 1 comment 1
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New Orleans Nightmare

Submitted to Contest #273

Louise was never one to scare off easily, nor did she ever care to believe in the paranormal. One of her earliest memories was sitting restlessly in a pew during the St. Louis Cathedral’s 11 o’clock Mass, swinging her legs up as far as they could go in her Sunday best. She remembered rolling her eyes whenever the priest would cry out that God can save us from the evil spirits lurking the city. More importantly, she remembered pitying all the fervent church-goers who believed him. Therefore, when the student body of Tulane decided to throw a ...

12 likes 0 comments 0
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