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On their deathbed, a relative/friend/partner admits to a horrible crime. Will the narrator reveal the secret or keep it hidden?

Posted in Dramatic on Nov 22, 2024

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✍️ 65 stories

Santa, The Hitman?

Winner of Contest #278 🏆

Content Note:This story contains references to physical violence and implied gore. These elements are presented in a darkly comedic and absurd context, focusing on the moral and emotional implications rather than explicit descriptions. Reader discretion is advised.The hospice smells like antiseptic and failed dreams. A Christmas-themed air freshener dangles from the IV stand, swaying in time with my father’s mechanical wheezing. It smells like cinnamon. And regret. The fluorescent lights hum, drowning out the morphine’s slow drip.Hi, I’m the...

162 likes 177 comments 177
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Losing My Religion

Submitted to Contest #278

Evil comes in many forms. It’s clever, deceptive. It disguises itself. When I was a priest, every time I stood at the pulpit to deliver a message, I would look out at the congregation and wonder who the wolves in sheep’s clothing were. It could have been anyone. It could have been the little old lady with the passive-aggressive temperament, the rich man who believed he had been blessed more than the others, the young lady who had wrapped her social identity around her faith, or the poor man who needed financial help to support his family. No...

39 likes 22 comments 22
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Unspoken

Submitted to Contest #278

CW: Death of a loved one“I stole it,” Gran says, her voice pale and wafer-thin. “I stole the flamingo.”She twists her crooked fingers around the waffle weave blanket and strains to lift her head from the pillow. I lean forward, sure she’s going to say more.But she doesn’t.She just dies instead.#The undertaker collects Gran at five-thirty and we fill her absence with Chinese takeaways and gin.We eat slowly, scraping limp cauliflower through nondescript sauce, continuing through the motions. Our lives go on. Gran’s doesn’t.“You okay?” I ask.Gr...

28 likes 16 comments 16
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The Bropeachment

Submitted to Contest #278

“We need to arrange a family meeting,” Mom declared, her tone leaving no room for argument. She set about calling and texting our relatives, inviting them to come to our place. Blessed with a commanding presence, combined with the intellectual heft of a well-trained lawyer, people tended to do what she asked. I had to track down Jason, who had moved into the UW dorm last year, and talk him into attending.On Sunday, all my aunts and uncles sat around our living room, sipping their diet sodas and glasses of white wine, and trying to figure out...

24 likes 19 comments 19
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LAUGH OUT LOUD: DEATHBED DIARIES

Submitted to Contest #278

Opening Scene:(The stage bathes in an ominous glow, pulsating with a kaleidoscope of neon lights. Tombstones scattered across the set flicker to life with words like "Secrets Never Rest" and “Confessions From Beyond." Thick fog rolls across the floor, curling around the glowing props like ghostly fingers, as an eerie, remixed version of Another One Bites the Dust pumps through the speakers, warped into a chilling tune. The atmosphere screams macabre spectacle. Suddenly, from the swirling mist, Morty Mirth appears — a skeleton host with razor...

23 likes 8 comments 8
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Pap

Submitted to Contest #278

Pap“Peter Gibbons?” the nurse asked.             I nodded, started to reach for my wallet, that automatic gesture we all learn early on. The one that says ‘hey, I can prove it, here are my papers’. Only they’re not papers anymore. Plastic mostly. Two-inch by three-inch chunks of some sort of polymer with some ink arranged in just the right way.             The nurse waived me off and pointed down the hall. “Room f...

19 likes 13 comments 13
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183061

Submitted to Contest #278

November 2008: Patti took a phone call from the care home at 11.42am on a windy day which blew the remaining leaves from their summer host. By the end of that day, Patti was at one with the leaves - because all she had ever known was blown away too. The manager collared her as she walked in, immediately irritated by the intense, stewing heat within the building. She could already feel beads of sweat on her upper lip. “I didn’t know your mother could speak German,” he said as an opener. “Nor did I,” she replied. She knew she sh...

18 likes 11 comments 11
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My Fathers Secret

Submitted to Contest #278

My driver pulls us into the entrance of the long driveway of my childhood home. The driveway feels like a mile long. Pulling up slowly, the car comes to a stop. I step out of the back of the car and stare at the massive white two-story plantation-style home. I feel a pang of anxiety at the realization that nothing about this house has changed since I left. My mother divorced my father, left town, and never came back when I was 17. I graduated high school, joined the Marines, and shattered my dad's plans for a global takeover. The stone path ...

17 likes 4 comments 4
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TT Never Learned

Submitted to Contest #278

It was late in the evening on a Thursday, and I was still at work in the detox facility. I am the owner of the business. It is a detox treatment facility for females and their children who suffer from addiction. I was cleaning for the holiday season and in the middle of decluttering the donation closets at my work, my phone rang. Ithought to myself: “I hate cell phones where are the good old times?” The phonecall from Spence was anything but pleasant. Mt friend TT was laying on herdeath bed. This call came so unexpected that dropped the...

14 likes 5 comments 5
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Her Declining Years

Submitted to Contest #278

The bloodroot and butterfly weeds had grown thicker in Her declining years. The wildflower garden had always had one vine-like tree lounging on the great oak, which had overspread its canopy and had become a hiding place for observant owls and rust colored squirrels alike. How had I not noticed this uncultivated plot as the burial place for her secret? A secret that was mine as well despite my lack of awareness. But it was there entwined in the roots of the great oak nourishing it like a bastardized Tree of Knowledge...

13 likes 1 comment 1
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Cry of Iron

Submitted to Contest #278

CW: Body horror, gore, talks of self-hatred, work accident. It felt as if the cold sheets engulfed me, reminding me of the fate I was left in all because of a single mistake. A single one. The single thought of it made me just want to scream, to cry out–yet I couldn’t. Multiple chords deteriorated all because of the mistake I made. Months ago, I made the simplest mistake that left me unrecognizable. Simply I should have paid attention, kept my head up, and just listened to what Garrick told me. “Always listen for the moderator to see when th...

13 likes 0 comments 0
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Sarah and Saint Anthony

Submitted to Contest #278

"Anthony! My favorite hospice chaplain! Come in." "Sarah, I'm your only hospice chaplain." "Nevertheless. Where have you been?" "I do have other patients." "But none you love more than me." "None that I love more than you." "Good boy. Sit down." "Yes, ma'am." "Anthony, hold my hand." "Okay." "How long have you been coming to see me?" "I think about six months now." "That's a long time." "It's really not, Sarah." "It is when the doctor says you only have six months to live." "Fair enough." "My six months are up." "It wasn't a hard deadline, I...

13 likes 3 comments 3
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The Family Secret

Submitted to Contest #278

Today is another anniversary of my father's death, and at the moment, I have learned about our family secret.Then, on his deathbed, my father told me something I didn't want to know. But thus, he cleared his conscience.He apologized for the fact that nothing could be changed. The burden of the secret had already fallen on my shoulders. *** When I was ten, my family moved to a small town.  My father once again sold all our real estate and bought a house in a town on the other side of the country. He was a computer programmer who worked f...

12 likes 2 comments 2
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From Russia, with Love

Submitted to Contest #278

“I… need to tell you something.”I leaned further forward in my chair and took Gramma’s hand. It was papery and thin, the veins standing out like mountain ranges against her pale skin. She hadn’t been outside in a while.“What is it?” I said, my voice gentle. She disliked loud noises.Gramma coughed and I instinctively reached for the pitcher, but she placed her hand on mine and patted it. “No, it’s fine. We don’t have much time, child. Please, come closer.”I shuffled my chair closer to the bed and leaned in again, the smell of lavender talcum ...

12 likes 5 comments 5
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The Truth Beneath the Blood

Submitted to Contest #278

The room smelled of antiseptic and regret, a sterile prison where the sun dared not penetrate the heavy drapes. As the machines beeped their monotonous dirge, I sat in the corner, watching my father drift between worlds—one foot still planted in the realm of the living, the other teetering on the precipice of whatever lay beyond. He was a shell of the man who had once chased me through the yard, laughter echoing like gunfire. Now, all that remained was a gaunt face, pale and waxen, and a voice that trembled like a leaf in a winter wind.“Jake...

12 likes 11 comments 11
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