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Write a story from the POV of someone waiting to be rescued.

Posted in Dramatic on Oct 10, 2025

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✍️ 74 stories

When the Ghost Didn't Come

Submitted to Contest #324

Liora didn’t know what it was called. The ground had given way beneath her before she had time to scream, the air rushing past her ears in a single sharp breath. Now, there was only stone. Stone beneath her palms, stone rising high above, slick with moss and old water. The circle of sky looked impossibly small from where she sat, knees drawn to her chest. Her voice echoed when she called for Kai—once, then twice—before dying into the dark. He would come. He always did. She pressed her hand to the wall, feeling the faint pulse of the world ab...

29 likes 9 comments 9
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Driftwood

Submitted to Contest #324

“And who do you imagine will come to rescue you from this desolate little town, dear?” “My future husband, duh!” she retorted. It had always been the same answer. “Good gracious, Cassandra.” A mirthless laugh escaped from the woman across from her, “I sure wish I shared the same assurance in the future.” She sighed, taking a sip from her tea. “But I’ve never been one for fruitless fantasies. The charming notion that life will sort itself out if you simply wish hard enough belongs in the same realm as unicorns and fairies - delightful, but h...

22 likes 7 comments 7
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Souls Lost

Submitted to Contest #324

July 22, 1884 Seventeen moons have now glistened over our heads since we watched The Mignonette fade beneath the dark waves, and nearly two weeks since we fed upon the turtle. Our cracked mouths are too drained to muster many words, and the blazing sun and incessant jostling manage to exhaust us and simultaneously hold us from sleep to remain in this purgatory of discomfort. Young Parker has been unconscious for two days, drifting into the abyss with settled contentment in his breath. His taut skin is bronzed and leathery, like a roasted por...

21 likes 8 comments 8
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Carried

Submitted to Contest #324

I didn't shout. I didn't wave, or thrash, or pray, either. Falling overboard wasn't exactly the plan, but I can't say I fought it. The rail had been cold against my palms. I'd been watching moonlight move across the black water like something alive, something breathing. My daughter had insisted on this cruise. "Dad, you need to get out," she'd said, her voice carrying that particular strain of worry that made me feel like a burden she was trying to redistribute. I slipped. The ship's rail caught my hip, then didn't, and suddenly I was in the...

20 likes 17 comments 17
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The Weight of Water

Submitted to Contest #324

The sea was calm that morning, with whitecaps emerging in the distance. The horizon stretched endlessly in all directions, cold and relentless. Gray sky met gray water, and somewhere in between was my lifeboat, half-swallowed by waves. Despite the motionless oars and the salt-crusted handles, I refused to give in. My hands, blistered, bled, and went numb, but I persisted. I tried to count time by the sun's movements, but even that rhythm eventually felt off. Some days, the light never came at all.There’s a special kind of peace you make with...

19 likes 7 comments 7
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The Valley

Submitted to Contest #324

The Valley They took my name first. Then my uniform. Then my voice. It’s strange what becomes valuable when you’re stripped of everything — a breath, a blink, a heartbeat. I learned that quickly in this hellhole. Each morning, the sound of boots scraping concrete tells me I’m still alive… and that’s the only mercy I’ve come to expect. The cell is small — just stone and rust and the smell of old blood. There’s a window, but it’s too high to reach. I can see the light shift through it, though. It helps me tell time, helps me remember there’s s...

19 likes 2 comments 2
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Buoyancy

Submitted to Contest #324

“UNEXPECTED ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA.” “Oh for God’s…” Maggie checked herself. It was both a Sunday and she was in public. Specifically she was in the Hatcham Lessco Superstore, which she’d forced herself to walk to. She needed to build up her 67-year-old bone health, her GP had warned. And her heart health would benefit too, her therapist had urged, a man seemingly still unawares after eight sessions that Maggie’s heart seemed to have gone the way of her dearly departed. Behind the curtain, up in smoke. What a wicked magic trick that had be...

17 likes 8 comments 8
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The Tidekeepers

Submitted to Contest #324

The diving bell shuddered as it settled into the trench, and Dr. Sarah Hawthorne knew immediately that something had gone catastrophically wrong. The seal had fractured along a hairline crack that the inspection had somehow missed, and now the communications array crackled with static before going silent. Through the single porthole, she watched her tether cable snake downward, severed and drifting in the current. The backup oxygen system hummed to life. Eighteen hours, maybe twenty-four if she remained calm. She keyed the emergency beacon a...

14 likes 4 comments 4
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Instructions to Mariners

Submitted to Contest #324

I was drowning in deep waters, waiting to be rescued. Or rather, I was waiting for someone to come and rescue me. Someone to see me sinking in the dark sea of despair, formed by my own tears and to offer me a helping hand. Nothing was breaking the endless line of my horizon, though.A few years before reaching 50, I felt that the moment I had been waiting for, one of relief and well-being, the time when I would eventually find myself again, after years of caring for my husband, my family, my friends and colleagues, and I would do what I reall...

14 likes 7 comments 7
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The Remains of a Brief Life

Submitted to Contest #324

There was a lot of a lot of different things before, not all bad and not all good, though at the time the bad seemed to outweigh the good, but now that I'm stuck out here, I'm not so sure if that's true anymore. They told me the sea was freedom, but what freedom is this if I carry the same weight everywhere I go? I left the world I knew, if even only for a few days, to come here to unwind, to find some peace of mind, yet here I am, infinite and unchanged. I started to think, first, of all the material things: my apartment, my car, the women ...

14 likes 11 comments 11
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The Promise

Submitted to Contest #324

They met at the trailhead on a Tuesday in March when the lot was still empty. David signed the log at 6:42. It was a remote trail David had never trekked before. Three minutes later a man stepped beside him and smiled like he had decided to be spontaneous. “Solo?” the man asked, studying the sun-faded map. “Yeah,” David said. “Same. Mind if I tag along for a bit? I’m Craig.” David hesitated, then nodded. “David.” They fell into an easy cadence. Work they did not love. Places they meant to visit. Divorce. They traded the kinds of facts strang...

14 likes 3 comments 3
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Still Waters

Submitted to Contest #324

I’ve been a sinner from the start. It’s me, Eli. I should have introduced myself first, but I wanted to admit it to you again so you would know I’m aware. You’re probably angry at me every second of every day because I just cannot stop sinning. That has to be a heavy weight to hold, to have sacrificed your only son for the likes of me. You watched as Jesus got whipped with barbs and rocks attached to the ends, again and again until his skin was tender enough to fly off with the whip like shedding skin. He survived the whippings that most men...

12 likes 4 comments 4
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the voyage

Submitted to Contest #324

CW: Physical violence, gore and abuse, mental health, starvation, refugees The Voyage Using their last ounce of strength, the weary people heaved the dinghy unsteadily through the shallow water. Clutching at faith alone, the boy and his father, along with the woman, prayed they'd make it to shore. The woman, a young mother, was particularly relieved to have spotted land at last. Breathing heavily, hair plastered to her face, clothes clinging to her thin body, she collapsed, arms outstretched, as if embracing the warm sand beneath her. In the...

11 likes 1 comment 1
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Suspicious Island

Submitted to Contest #324

I am done with this. I am done with watching out to the ocean every day in hopes of being rescued. “Have faith” they say. “Everything is fine” they say. My parents say a lot of things and since the "plane crash" God knows how long ago; I don’t believe a word. With each passing day, I get more suspicious of the adults around, my parents in particular. No one should be so calm after a near death experience. No one should just settle for an island lifestyle. We should all be figuring out how to get off this God forsaken island. Yet, my parents ...

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Mother Moon

Submitted to Contest #324

January 30 The stars are out tonight. I’m looking at them now. So small, so dim, so frail, but there are so many of them. I can see them through the inky silhouettes of the nearby trees. They peek out like they’re playing hide-and-seek, like if they pop out and back enough times, they’ll make me smile. My head hurts. A numb kind of pain. Not sure why, but I think I’m dehydrated. Yeah, that’s probably it. I’d give anything for a cup of cold water right now. A clear, frosty glass of water, topped off with ice? I can feel it now, wet in my pa...

11 likes 2 comments 2
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