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Write a story inspired by the phrase “The plot thickens.”

Posted in Dramatic on Apr 14, 2023

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✍️ 52 stories

Daycare, After Hours

Submitted to Contest #194

CW: References to miscarriage/domestic violence/injury***It's five minutes before six o'clock when Daphne bids the girl and her father goodnight. From the daycare's entrance, she watches them drive off into the dark winter evening. When they're out of sight, she sighs and returns to Wesley, the only thing standing between her and going home."Welp, just you and me now, kiddo," she says.It isn't an unfamiliar situation. Among the daycare staff, Wesley Dawson's mother is known for two things: being a single parent, and arriving chronically late...

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Trampled Dreams

Submitted to Contest #194

(Excerpt from Chapter One of my unpublished novel 'A Brilliantly Scathing Life'. The plot thickens...)Head hung downward, Kendra stared unseeingly as the dry earth passed beneath the massive hooves of the oxen team pulling her heavy Conestoga wagon. Then the freshly turned earth came into view just under her high bench seat. Already it had been flattened by the wagons streaming ahead of her and was fading to blend with the surrounding clay. The wagon master had insisted that was the way it had to be to keep wild animals from ravaging the rem...

49 likes 76 comments 76
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Simon Says

Submitted to Contest #194

“We’re just downloading the patient’s memories to a hard drive. I mean, it’s hardly brain surgery, now is it…?” The operating room comprising of two doctors, one nurse, and the anaesthetist, suddenly went disbelievingly silent, searching each other to see if there was a possible punch line to follow. “I’m sorry, Doctor Abel,” the chief nurse spoke up. “Was that a joke?” “Should it be?” Simon Abel answered with a question. “I know it’s just attached sensors and that you’re not cutting her open,” the nurse attempted to defend her opinion. “But...

32 likes 19 comments 19
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A Warlock's Gamble

Submitted to Contest #194

Dominion. Temptation. Gambling. Retreat. Snaked around Godwick’s neck, Greymalken licked at the air with a forked tongue emerging from a tiny snout of jagged teeth. Telepathically, the pseudodragon observed, “He’s resisting.”  Wearing a spectral iron crown, Severain Yim, a healthy, young Gaelwyn Man in his mid-thirties and cousin to the King of Nodderton, resentfully gnashed his rotting teeth. He was armored, wearing a green and black surcoat and a sheathed broadsword hung at his hip. A heavy metal key trembled in his ashen hand.  ...

27 likes 29 comments 29
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Littlest Bear’s Big Adventures

Submitted to Contest #194

Littlest Bear’s Big Adventures As soon as Beginning of Time had begun, Bears ambled traipsily hither and yon. Bigger and small of them, shorter and tall of them, furrily all of them—all, except one.Bigger Bear, chuffing and snuffily shuffling, waddled and waded in water so crystalline. Wishfully, fishingly, ever more cleverly snatching and catching the slippery prey, Bigger Bear—robust and pridefully powerful—routed his cowerful rivals away.Tauntingly, flauntingly, flourishing famously, growling and gloatsome or sleepily still, Bear was...

27 likes 19 comments 19
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The Swing

Submitted to Contest #194

“I don’t want to go to the river,” I whispered at the note written on crumpled paper: Meet me at 4. Need to talk.  Tears pricked the back of my eyes. The sinking feeling in my chest had only grown over the last two weeks. You called less and less. My calls went to your voicemail more and more.  But I drug myself out of bed, put on some makeup and a pair of jean shorts. Mom offered to braid my hair the way you liked it when I told her I was going to our spot, but I blew her off. Sixteen was hard.  “So tell me about this...

25 likes 6 comments 6
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The Execution of Danny McMarn

Submitted to Contest #194

Joe Niehues carefully set up fifty chairs; Simon Parker, his boss, had warned that the execution might draw a decent crowd. Niehues observed the effect once he was finished, the neat rows of chairs facing the larger, ominous chair, with its restraining straps and its legs anchored with metal screws; a grotesque thrown facing its subjects. He was ashamed to notice that his hands were shaking.Niehues returned to their small office; it contained a filing cabinet, a messy desk, and a small bookshelf. Parker had his feet on the desk as he read in...

22 likes 5 comments 5
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The Trail

Submitted to Contest #194

Day One: I am investigating the disappearance of some food from my locker. I understand that I should not expect any help from my fellow classmates or the school, so I will be undertaking this venture by myself. In the event that I do not solve this mystery, I intend to carry about my own food and then find a way to replace my combination lock – or locker – without breaking any of the rules of this institution. Several teachers have advised me to let this go, but I am a fan and devoted reader of mysteries, and I know that there is always mor...

21 likes 13 comments 13
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Ashes of Indecisive Customers

Submitted to Contest #194

“Ahh Sweetheart, let me look at you,” says Gran. I release Gran from my embrace, the scent of her rose soap lingering between us. I squeeze her shoulders. Her eyes smile at me with a bit of emptiness. Sweetheart she called me. She hasn’t called me Jen in a year. It’s been two months since I’ve seen her. My mom and my sister, Sam, have driven Gran to a small town that’s halfway between my house and theirs. Just some ladies meeting for a little antique hunting—or, as Gran would call it, shopping for modern treasures. None of us has the h...

20 likes 8 comments 8
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Spoils of war

Submitted to Contest #194

July 1945Colette sauntered through the living room with a bottle of champagne and crystal coupe clutched in one hand, her silk kimono pinched in the other. She had a vibration to her, a simple unequivocal self-assuredness she carried, which could usually only be accomplished by a wealthy widow on her fifth husband. She walked barefoot into the library, her kimono wafted with each stride towards the grand piano. The crystal clinked on the shiny black surface as she poured the champagne to the brim, then bent over to drink the overflow of...

20 likes 4 comments 4
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The Saga of Dan Smith ‘The Good’

Submitted to Contest #194

An excited voice on the other end of the line was one I had heard many times before. No matter the vagueness of the threat, the process begins the same way. Someone did something that allowed a cyber threat to penetrate their system. My job is to neutralize the threat, repair or replace the data, and harden their network against future attacks. Monday morning started as so many others that came before it. After the panicked call from a large company in Hackensack, New Jersey, I called my assistant to make the travel arrangements. With...

19 likes 10 comments 10
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THE COCKTAIL PARTY

Submitted to Contest #194

As luck would have it, the cocktail party brought together two masters of the English language. On the one hand, Arthur Lambert was a highly respected professor of English and creative writing. On the other hand, Tom Salinger was a well-known and celebrated author of short stories and novels.Professor Lambert approached the famed author and introduced himself.“Hello, Mr. Salinger. I’m so happy to have the opportunity to meet you. I’m a great fan of your writing. In fact, I use your writing in my graduate classes as a...

19 likes 4 comments 4
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The Thing About Eggs

Submitted to Contest #194

“And so it happened that Jesus rose from the grave,” finished the priest. “How did he move the boulder?” Tim asked. The priest found the child in the crowd and looked at him. “What?” he said. “The boulder. There was a boulder, was there not?” “Why do you concern yourself with these trivialities, Tim?” the priest scowled. “Why is it trivial, if it is in the Bible?” “Well, God is almighty, is he not?” “That may be so, but the Bible says that Jesus was a human. He did not have the physical strength of God.” The priest was incensed with anger. H...

17 likes 9 comments 9
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His Saké Breath

Submitted to Contest #194

"Thanks for coming in!" My voice rings out with disturbing precision. Retail life has ingrained very particular habits in me that are nearly unbreakable. I quickly grab my grocery bag and scurry out of the store before the cashier can acknowledge my words. "Thanks for shopping with us, sir!" A small voice echoes behind me. My hands tremble with embarrassment as I reposition the paper bag in my arms. I hate my life. I get to my vehicle in seconds, my humiliation driving my feet. Suddenly, a blur jots across my vision. I stare across the way...

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Born to Live

Submitted to Contest #194

There were times Thomas found himself forgetting. His father, his mother, their faces and voices, the home they had lived in. All of it was distant in his mind, faded and blurred. It had gotten worse since he caught the sickness, even yesterday's events felt more like a dream than reality. Maybe they were. But for all his forgetting, his grandfather's memory remained firmly set in stone. His parents had died at some point. Maybe at the same time, maybe years apart. A war might have played a role, or gangsters. Could have been a bootlegger wi...

15 likes 4 comments 4
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