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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write about a character who has the ability to pause the passage of time.

Posted in Fantasy on May 31, 2024

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✍️ 71 stories

“When science went too far” by Jenitta Daniel

Submitted to Contest #253

Chris Hemsworth was one of the best : a scientist who excelled at any subject or job given to him. He was not married, stating that he was "married to science". As such was the young man, who had dreamt of discovering a new element, after his friends at Dubna, Russia had found and christened element 118, Oganesson. The race was on. He needed a new element in order to impress his superiors, and prove that the US excelled at everything. He was under constant stress to deliver, and was often found sleeping at the laboratory by his colleagues wh...

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“All We Have Is Time” by Ellen Bennett

Submitted to Contest #253

All We Have Is Time©2024 Ellen Bennett           Verdant pastures spread panoramically, dotted with scarred, red-wooded barns, squat doublewides or old homes in various stages of disrepair. Along the way, an invisible wall surrounds me, like I’ve entered a balloon filled with thick humid air. It stops me at once. I dismount the bicycle and straddle it between my knees, catching my breath. JOURNAL ENTRY: BICYCLE TRIP, JUNE 4, 2024 A pole barn with its open doors is stre...

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“Just Like Daybreak” by Aeryn Goodspeed

Submitted to Contest #253

(Glossary included at the end) Sable trudged down the hall. Is this what being a grown-up feels like? she wondered. She felt as though gravity was working about twice as much as usual, pulling down on her ears, her whiskers, her tail. She could feel the cool sandstone under the open soles of her sandals, taste the dust in the air–more from construction than age, considering this citadel had been built on top of the one that had been crushed by the Sciftan’s spaceship four cycles prior. She couldn’t say she wasn’t disappointed, but when she ...

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“Homerun--Through the Timeline” by Bob Faszczewski

Submitted to Contest #253

           Five decades away from the streets of his youth had done little to dampen Harry’s enthusiasm for the stickball games that had highlighted his teen years.           Like Mickey Mantle, swinging a Louisville Slugger at Yankee Stadium’s home plate, he used to step menacingly up to the manhole cover with his converted wooden broom handle waiting for Joey or one of his other pals to wind up and let loose with the perfect pitch....

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“All the Time in the World” by Robert Bennett

Submitted to Contest #253

   Imagine if someone asked you, “If you could choose any superpower, what would it be?”.   What would you choose?   I bet a dozen different things came to mind.   I know at least a few of you would probably say something like super-strength. Or the ability to fly. With how popular some of the big supers are, heroes like Cosmic Man or Power Woman, I know that’s probably first on a few lists. Big and powerful. Flashy. The epitome of what you picture when you think “superhero”. &...

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“Blue” by Michael Olds

Submitted to Contest #253

 Contains themes of serious illness.I pressed the pause button, an unconscious act, as before, and she stopped. It was an almost comic moment as she stood, just about balanced, her knees bent as she began to drop back onto her old chair. This was how it could be forever.I’d discovered the pause button the day that we met. She was about to sit at a table across the room from where I was sat enjoying my tea and Victoria sponge, tucked away in my usual corner of the Blue Stripe Café. I hadn’t seen her come in and the fi...

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“Time Flies” by Jonathan Todd

Submitted to Contest #253

“Why me?” I ask myself again as my sneakers thunder down the sidewalk while my eyes search for an escape route.I risk a glance behind and Derek and his gang of goons are gaining on me roaring threats of what they are going to do with me.Why I didn’t just hand over my lunch money as I usually do? I know. Dad had told me I needed to stand up for myself and not let the likes of Derek control me.So today when they shoved me against the tree in the yard I shoved back. Derek fell on his ass and the rest of the kids laughed.While they laughed, I ra...

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“When The Earth Stood Still” by J Appos

Submitted to Contest #253

Adam learned he could pause time at 2:27 pm on a sunny Thursday in July. He knew the time exactly because the clock on his computer had stopped.He simply begged everything –pleaded with it, really– to give him a moment.And it did. Even his pen, which he had been clicking against his desk in barely concealed frustration at his block-headed, snub-nosed dunce of client, halted. Adam looked at it with astonishment, poised a half inch or so above the desk.Then the absence of sound hit him. Where previously there had been a bar...

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“Basil and Rosemary's Infinite Goodbyes” by Sarah W

Submitted to Contest #253

There'd been no warning. That’s what was so strange. None at all. One moment smiling, and then… Sitting in his armchair, Basil stared at her photo. Something so big - so life-changing and catastrophic - there should’ve been a warning. Some tremor in the earth, or darkening of the sky, to herald her departure from the world. But it was just an ordinary day. A day like any other. The sun was out, the sky a brilliant azure, weightless above their heads as they'd negotiated the gap in the bramble. Basil had held Rosemary’s hand to help her over ...

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“The Garden Of Time” by Karen Obrien

Submitted to Contest #253

Eleanor sat in her cluttered apartment, surrounded by piles of books, old records, and a collection of vintage clocks that never told the right time. Her eyes were fixed on the newest addition to her assortment—a small, antique pocket watch with intricate engravings on its brass casing. She found it in a dusty corner of a thrift shop, nestled among forgotten relics. There was something about the watch that felt different, almost magical. She turned the watch over in her hands, admiring the craftsmanship. There was no maker’s mark, just a pec...

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“Blink of an Eye” by Justin Diaz

Submitted to Contest #253

“Blink of an eye” The world had ceased to move as if it was a photo sitting in a frame on someone’s desk. Passing birds were now motionless and did not fall out of the sky, a jogger doing their morning run was frozen in mid stride along the bridge that went over the street below. The only sound that could be heard were the footsteps of one man. He kept his hands in his pockets as he walked on the sideway that went under the bridge. Looking to his left were a few cars supposedly traveling to their destinations but a force beyond their control...

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“All The Time in the World” by Jeff Macloud

Submitted to Contest #253

I glanced at my watch, hoping for good news. But it was already 2:15 p.m., and I would need to leave in the next five minutes if I was going to catch my flight. "I wish we could stop time," I said, holding Taryn's hand, smoothing her hair, smiling into blue eyes that were the color of arctic sea ice. "What should we do? I mean, if you could stop time?" Those eyes were smiling back but her mouth was serious, as if time manipulation were possible and she wanted to know. "Everything," I said. "Nothing. Whatever we wanted." I kissed her, just a ...

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“TIME STOP: ONE MOMENT IN TIME” by Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #253

What if you had the ability to stop time for one fleeting moment? In that one moment what would you do? Would you change anything in that one moment? Time is precious. Time moves at a rapid pace. Time holds nothing back. There is not enough time in a day. In an hour things can change. Your whole life can change in that one single hour. The world can change in that one single hour and not for the better. That one single hour is the last hour you will ge to be with those you love. Then in that one single hour a miracle happens. This miracle al...

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“The Other Side” by Emmanuella Eledu

Submitted to Contest #253

Black hail batters the broken earth. The violently sweeping flurries of steam do nothing to melt or slow it, for it is more like dull, glittering stones. On other days, it falls lazily in imprecise ellipses, but all afternoon, it drops with a determined intensity only matched by the beating of my heart. I recline in front of the hearth and stare at the dying fire licking up the debris that sits loosely on the floorboards underneath. It's the only break I get from anxiety—to pause and stare, take in reality. But these days, I find it hard to ...

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“At Least It's Quiet” by Grayson Chilcote

Submitted to Contest #253

Tyler walked out of his room, fresh out of a much needed after school nap. He heard the garage door rise and the front door open, which meant his parents must be home from work and his brother home from baseball. They rarely have nights as a family anymore, so Tyler was excited for tonight when they would finally be able to sit down and just eat dinner all together again.  The boy often forgot why they didn’t spend much time together anymore. When he was young, they would go to the mall or watch movies or play outside or build toys. The...

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