Set your story in a silent house by the sea.

Posted in Dystopian on Oct 25, 2022

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✍️ 61 stories

“The Old House” by Rachel Morris

Submitted to Contest #119

The house stood silently by the sea, she thought. It was an annoying habit of Jessie’s; annoying to her, anyway. It was happening inside her, so no one else knew of or was bothered by it. She seemed incapable of experiencing life without being distanced from it by a screen of precise descriptive sentences from inside her own skull. A tireless, grammatically perfect narrator. This feature kept her in a living, or the semblance of one, for now. But sometimes she feared what the cost might be. She stood at the foot of the driveway to the hous...

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“Summer House” by Diane Sintich

Submitted to Contest #119

My thick, dark soprano wafted heavy Verdian tones throughout every somber room. Desdemona’s “Willow Song” explored the corners like slow moving lava, blanketing every inch of the meticulously clean, egg shell tinted, cold, stone walls. Sometimes the wind stole an echoing phrase to the cafe along the highway, swept over the dry, empty field, where the local, wine-soaked farmers spoke of hearing music no one else heard, much less believed. The freezing cold waters of the Mediterranean were heard in the distance lapping up agains...

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“Silence and the Sea” by Azia Bradshaw

Submitted to Contest #119

Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip… She checked her watch and saw that it’d been twelve hours since she ended up here. But how had she ended up here? She remembered driving down old Gilluard Road, carved into the cliffside. She’d been angry with her husband - ex-husband. They had gotten into a fight like they always do (did?), and she stormed out and drove off. She remembered hearing her blood roar in her ears, like an angry tide or a swath of killer bees. And she remembered driving past that dilapidated h...

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“THREE CHIMNEYS ON THE BEACH” by Mara Masolini

Submitted to Contest #119

.THREE CHIMNEYS ON THE BEACH From the glass facade the sea seemed to enter the house, which, despite its transparent façade, had almost the appearance of a beach cottage, a red brick cottage with a sloping red roof, on which three chimneys stood ( out), and on each chimney, a cockerel windbreaker ( a cockerel wind vane). On the ground floor of the beach cottage ( house), which would be more appropriate to call…sand floor, there was a wide room, perhaps a study, perhaps a kind of living room, furnished exclusively with all...

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“Something Woke her” by Joseph Morris

Submitted to Contest #119

Something Woke Her By Joseph Morris Something woke her. Her eyes opened to a shaft of alabaster cloud-broken moonlight peeking through a slightly parted blackout curtain and the almost melodic-sound of waves breaking against the shore in the cove. The storm? But there’s moonlight and an almost peaceful surf. The storm must have ended. And Rex wasn’t prowling around. If something sinister had wakened her, he’d up and patrolling. Wait, Rex was spending the night at the vet. She didn’t have the benefit of his extended senses to prote...

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“Connections” by Robert Obszanski

Submitted to Contest #119

To get away from civilization, to be alone, it’s all he ever wanted. After the loss of his job, the death of his parents and a divorce, all within the span of a year, he fled. Fled to some remote part of the world driven by some remote part of his brain. There he wanted nothing more than to get away from the turbulence of the man-made world. The sea provided that in abundance. The city life suffocated him. The sea provided a surcease to his asphyxiation. ...

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“Hurricane Spares the Beach House, Comforts its People” by Deborah Trahan

Submitted to Contest #119

Kat struggles to climb the final flight of stairs, determined to step onto the front porch before the first squalls of wind and rain slam the screen door shut. While she hauls the grocery bags indoors, the wooden rockers flip and butt up against the windows on the south side of the Huntington family beach house, a sure sign that the hurricane’s trajectory may be turning. And not in a positive direction.Her siblings and their children are scheduled to arrive in a couple of days for a fall reunion of sorts. Planned for months, Kat’s reluctant ...

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“The Keeper” by Kaelin Eckels

Submitted to Contest #119

“I was the keeper.” The brutish old man bellowed. His voice rang out, echoing against the run-down pub’s walls. Not a flicker of emotion crossed his face. Glaring around the room, he saw only young, innocent eyes, so different from his own. Young men; sailors, all of them, who had seen nothing of the horrors his own eyes had witnessed. The old man’s eyes were blue, and though he wished he’d been driven blind long ago, they still worked better than all the others in the pub. A heavy silence fell over the room of chatty conversation, lea...

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“Songs down memory lane” by Greta L

Submitted to Contest #119

“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.” Plato It is almost winter now and cold sea air is invading through small cracks in the window frame. The lights in the attic are dim but the bright moon is shining through the window, illuminating the room. I am wrapping my hands tightly around a cup of peppermint tea and lift it close to my face to warm myself. I close my eyes and calmly inhale the hot steam, allowing its fresh and sharp scent to fill me with serenity. I am lookin...

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“The Sound of Silence” by Kathryn T

Submitted to Contest #119

I looked at the house, sitting there lonely and silent. I remembered the time when warm, inviting light shone from the windows, and friendly chatter drifted out from the sheltered cove and across the lonely sea. But that was years ago now. Now, the house was rickety, battered relentlessly by wind and water. I began to carefully climb down the cliff side, my hands and feet slipping perfectly into holds worn into the rock face by generations of use. I approached the house, the blue sky playing peek-a-boo through t...

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“Kays House by the /sea” by Kathy Philpott

Submitted to Contest #119

Kays House by the Sea When I looked at the pictures on the internet, the house looked perfect. It was a small bungalow with two bedrooms, one and a half baths, a fireplace, a wrap-around porch, and most importantly, the glorious Pacific Ocean within walking distance. Unfortunately, all the information I could gather indicated there hadn't been any updates since 1965; neither had I, so it was fine. I met the Realtor one morning at the house. Her name was Jody, and she was all teeth and big blond hair. When Jody found out my age, she d...

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“Isolated Truths” by Random Content

Submitted to Contest #119

The sound of the waves crashing against the shore echoed in my ears. I listened intently as I stood on the coarse sand, watching the tides come in and flow back. Moonlight penetrated the ocean’s surface and dug into its depths, illuminating darkest corners of its boundless body. Yet, despite the moon’s best efforts, the ocean remained an enigma, an incomprehensible mass of water that hides many secrets beneath its glittering surface. I found myself walking towards the rolling tides and wanting to submerge myself within ocean’s warmth, sinkin...

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“The Silencing of Life” by Chris Waldron

Submitted to Contest #119

Content warning: references to suicide, government-directed violence towards migrants. We didn’t save the world today. But nobody really talks about that anymore. The island lies dormant this evening. Everybody goes straight home after work now. We used to get together, usually for a drink, perhaps for a board game, and sometimes, when the weather was forgiving and the tide was low, we’d set up the badminton net down on the beach. I miss those days. We all do, but we’re all too tired to do anything about it. I come up here daily. It’...

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“Into the Ocean” by E S

Submitted to Contest #119

The sea is much louder than any city she has ever been to. The sounds of the city fade in and out of her ears; she could tune it out then. But the sea cannot be ignored. The constant beat of the waves nauseates her. The waves are all she can hear when she opens the faded red door to her sea-side shack. In a lonely house on the sea, she finds it hard to think of anything else but the loudness of the outside. The walls within are an all-encompassing quiet that wraps her up and insulates her away. The outer walls are stained gray from d...

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“For they were the same full moon lighting up the dark sky” by Angelita Borges

Submitted to Contest #119

The waves were meeting the shore bathing in a beautiful sunset light. Anna liked it when the sky was purple because it reminded her of the years she used to spend at her grandma’s house. ‘Oh, what a time to be a child’, those images flashed by her eyes as was she was sipping her coffee on that Sunday evening. Her grandparents used to live in a small and distant village, so far away from everything, where she could run and only run and be free. There was no one around to say how dangerous it was for her to be by herself. Anna always used to e...

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Set your story in a silent house by the sea.

Submissions are closed

✍️ 61 stories

“The Old House” by Rachel Morris

“Summer House” by Diane Sintich

“Silence and the Sea” by Azia Bradshaw

“THREE CHIMNEYS ON THE BEACH” by Mara Masolini

“Something Woke her” by Joseph Morris

“Connections” by Robert Obszanski

“Hurricane Spares the Beach House, Comforts its People” by Deborah Trahan

“The Keeper” by Kaelin Eckels

“Songs down memory lane” by Greta L

“The Sound of Silence” by Kathryn T

“Kays House by the /sea” by Kathy Philpott

“Isolated Truths” by Random Content

“The Silencing of Life” by Chris Waldron

“Into the Ocean” by E S

“For they were the same full moon lighting up the dark sky” by Angelita Borges

🌟 Similar prompts

Start your story with an unusual sound being heard.

Start your story with a character saying “Listen, …”

Write a story inspired by a piece of music (without using any lyrics).

Write a story that involves eavesdropping.

Contest #119

Enter our weekly contest!

$250

Prize money

232

Contest entries

160

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

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