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Set your story during a month of drought — whether literal, or metaphorical.

Posted in Dramatic on Jan 12, 2024

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✍️ 36 stories

The Hunger

Submitted to Contest #233

How long has it been since manna fell from the heavens? Onora has lost count of the days. But it has been long enough for the hunger to return. The streets of Inghariad, once teeming with wealth and prosperity, now sit hollow and cursed, their golden cobblestones chipped and stained with blight. Onora moves like a ghost through the shadows, her feet light enough to make the barest whisper. Even the slightest touch placed too firmly, too carelessly, will betray her. There is no room for mistakes on foraging days. She knows this all too well....

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If There are No Men on Mars Then I am Not a Man

Submitted to Contest #233

      I have not spoken to another human being in twenty-five years. I was at that time, the best astral projectionist on the planet, able to extend my consciousness an almost unlimited distance away from my physical body, and so I was chosen to search for extraterrestrial life, living or extinct, in a place where men cannot go. It was the most pressing question on the human mind and what fools we were, for as long as my body lies preserved unconscious in a lab I am unable to return to it. I canno...

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King of Flames and Queen of Tides

Submitted to Contest #233

King of Flames and Queen of Tides By: Nathaniel Stiles The sun beat down on Micah’s head, driving him to seek shelter. A rocky ledge looked to be the best place of survival for him, so he loped over and settled down numbly. Heat radiated from the ground in visible waves, and Micah knew instinctively that the temperature would not fall anytime soon. Water. He needed water.  How had this happened so fast? Just days ago, he had been sitting comfortably in his house, eating chips and drinking Gatorade. And then the Firestorm. Water, he ...

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Water's Blessed

Submitted to Contest #233

This story contains mentions of death! My tears had all been used up as I stared out the window. They were all gone and I was left alone. I could no longer feel the pleasant rains of my sister or hear my father’s rippling rivers. It was quiet and there was no sign of the clouds I had so loved. My mother’s beautifully made clouds were now replaced with the scorching sun. I sat and watched as the people below slowly began to die from the heat and from thirst. The water in this land was gone now that my family was too. We were ...

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A Thirst Not Easily Quenched

Submitted to Contest #233

Joyce could barely feel the bullet buried in her calf. In fact, it's gone from the worst damn feeling she’s ever felt to an icy soreness. Almost as if she just had a fall, but instead of an ugly bruise on the back of her calf, there was lead taking up space in her flesh. She wrapped the thing with torn fabric from her chemise two days ago. Was it two days ago? She couldn’t quite remember. The desert sun was beating her mind away.But it was two days ago, wasn’t it? She thought. Yes. Two days ago Baxter shot a bullet into her leg, rode ou...

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An Alberta summer.

Submitted to Contest #233

Warning: This story contains multiple sensitive themes, such as sexual violence, mental health, substance abuse, physical violence, strong/ foul language, gore, and abuse. “Hell yeah! You brought the good stuff!” Bobby yelled as he scurried towards the open cargo bed of Randy’s truck. Bobby was a small man—a dwarf, if you insist—and so were his wife and their daughter Kennedy. McKinney, however, had not caught the strand of dwarfism; she had been deemed the lucky one after she had a growth spurt that made her slightly taller than her e...

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The Masked Party

Submitted to Contest #233

July 10th, 2040 (28 A.E.) Denver Somewhere in the city a grand themed party for the rich is taking place, and is quite, quite ridiculous… V's words dripped with a bitter irony as she adjusted her mask, its facade contrasting sharply with her sparkly black dress and the fiery red of her hair that complemented her pale, freckled skin. "Funny, to think, I was hoping for a ball but now these masks take the cake," she remarked, her voice tinged with a venomous edge as she observed the masked figures inside of the mansion in front of her. "The peo...

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The Great Drying

Submitted to Contest #233

Rain poured, children played, women fell, and men cried. It had been 32 days of dry air and 32 nights of bone-powdered ground since the rain had ceased.In the first seven days of the drought, few heeded the warnings, and fewer cared to hear them. Cars drove from parking space to parking space, erupting spurts of gas as they bumbled angrily down their black trails. A policy of overuse had become commonplace among the modern community during its short, abundantly prosperous epoch. How could a resource so seemingly infinite become sparse? ...

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Drought

Submitted to Contest #233

“It’s been almost a month since he left. Everyone keeps asking me if I’m doing ok, I just say yes. Truth is, I don’t really know how to answer.” He jotted some stuff down on his pad of paper, clearly he had some idea of what was wrong with me. I watched him move up his glasses, “do you think him leaving has made you feel relief at all? Or do you think it has just caused more grief?” he asked. I sighed heavily.  “I don’t know,” I replied. The rest of my appointment was pretty dry, just Dr. Thomas trying to pull some sort of emotio...

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''Nothing.''

Submitted to Contest #233

First Edition- Be warned that the following story contains potentially triggering content involving gore and psychological collapse, as well as family strife.‘’Nothing’’My mother warned me not to stray beyond the light of the pylons. With the crackling of her dry throat she barked, ‘’One step, and you’ll belong to The Shadows. The only way people will hear your voice again will be in the rustling of the leaves sent astray by the vicious winds and cruel nights.’’ But I was as curious as I was foolish, and I set out to see them for myself. The...

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Daughters of Drought

Submitted to Contest #233

It’s been 28 days since our last rain. I know because I’ve counted on my yellowed old calendar. I know because the last storm was something out of a dream. I almost thought it was a dream. It may as well be one now.   This last rain, it was one of those storms that rolls in with hours of rumbling warnings, a show that starts like the orchestra of an opera warming up before the first act– a stroke of string that will inevitably send itself into an overture. I heard it first, echoing thunder, around five in the evening, then I smelt ...

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The Last Shredder

Submitted to Contest #233

In the dark of night, before the sun rises, he who loves to shred rises from deep slumber. He laces on his snow boots. He grabs his toast to go. He pours the hot coffee into his traveling mug dented and scratched from many miles of carrying and dropping. A lonely soul, he drives up the long winding canyon roads. Cursing under his breath, the sun scalds his eyes as it crests over the ridgeline. Biting his lip he scours the morning sky, searching and searching for the blessed storm clouds. The sky is bare, blue, and unforgiving.  He park...

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"Whispers of Resilience"

Submitted to Contest #233

The story set in a small, drought-stricken rural town centers on Elias, an elderly man deeply affected by both the physical drought and his own emotional turmoil following his wife's death. His garden, which used to symbolize his inner energy and shared love, now reflects his soul's barren state. The community around him struggles with the environmental calamity, showcasing diverse human responses to hardship.Initially overwhelmed by his grief and the town's plight, Elias has a moment of realization. He understands that while he cannot chang...

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Drought

Submitted to Contest #233

DROUGHT © 2024Andy Pearson Droughts don’t end in a light rain that quells the dust and conditions the soil to retake water. The end of all droughts is a downpour.  The vegetation barely clinging to earth with roots staying near the surface trying to collect morning dew. These shallow roots allow plants to be washed away at the first rain.  My drought started after my divorce. A divorce I didn’t see coming. One day I’m a married man living in a picket fence neighborhood and thinking about a someday family. The next da...

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The Bullet

Submitted to Contest #233

I killed someone today. I cannot recall ever shooting someone with intention to kill. It must have been the last war, but my memory of those days has been blurry. I am certain of having fired quite a few shots since; some bullets, such as those of my neighbor’s wedding, carried a joy that flew up into the clouds alongside a swarm of accompanying bullets, elevated evermore by the force of our dances, chants, and drummed melodies. Other bullets were pushed forward by my fear, but with the intention to instill that same fear in the enemy. Not t...

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