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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Begin a scene with a non-visual sense. Describe a specific sound, smell, taste, etc to capture your setting, then expand the story out from there.

Posted in Fiction on Sep 29, 2023

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✍️ 174 stories

“Movie Night” by Nicholas Padula

Submitted to Contest #218

*TW: This short story contains frequent coarse language and one use of a homophobic slur* I immediately knew this first date was off to an abysmal start as I sat next to my date in the movie theater and the guy sitting next to us let out a fart that could have been mistaken for a gunshot. Mike and I flinched at the sound and the guy guffawed at his violent emission of methane. His poor wife/girlfriend shook her head in a way that seemed a little too accepting for such a disgusting faux pas. Unfortunately, we were the only witnesses to this c...

1 comment 1
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“A Tug Home” by Vivacity Rex

Submitted to Contest #218

**Warning: This story contains dark themes. Including violence, death, and blood.** The wind is relentless as it stings my cold skin with the pricks of a thousand pins and needles. Exasperated, I force in a breath. My lungs fill with the warm and slightly sweet aroma of burning wood, flooding my mind with an unbidden memory.  A room from a time well past, filled with the gentle smoke of a fireplace, I watch from my favoured chair as my youngest brother, Marc, animatedly tells us about his latest conquest. My mother and father, as us...

2 comments 2
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“The Test” by Stan Konwiser

Submitted to Contest #218

Most of the time Aaron hated the rain, but this time listening to the sound of rain falling on the tent was as soothing as the whisper of his mother when a child and sleep would overtake him. It was late in the evening on this camping trip and the night rain would likely pass by morning promising a glorious day of hiking. That his current love, Elaine, was laying next to him also listening to the gentle patter of the falling drops added to the contentment that flowed over him, “Listen to the falling rain, what a peaceful sound when we are ...

2 comments 2
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“Breakdown” by John Meyers

Submitted to Contest #218

The screech of the tires sliding on the asphalt had a rhythm that pierced Amelia’s ears. Thump, thump, thump reverberated through the car as it slid off the road. A loud pop and then the hissing of steam ended the crescendo. The warm, sweet smell of antifreeze filled the car. “Are you ok?” Amelia asked her son David. “I’m OK.” “Let’s get out of the car.” “Mom, my door won’t open.” “Come out this side,” Amelia said as she exited the car. David crawled over to her side and followed her out. The hissing from the car subsided, and the crickets c...

2 comments 2
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“Tau Ceti” by Anna Maeve

Submitted to Contest #218

In the abyss of her disoriented consciousness, she awoke, ensnared within the confines of a steel chamber. The echoes of her own ragged breaths drilled through the air, her body trembling as she tried to recollect how she got here. Her hands grazed the slick walls, searching for any discernible clue, but she found nothing. The metallic surface beneath her fingertips remained as unforgiving as her fragmented memories. The taste of rust lingered in the air, the biting cold painful against her skin. She pressed onward, her bare feet tracing...

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“Blind Panic” by Lora Sells

Submitted to Contest #218

Ping!             Angelica’s body twitched but her breath remained smooth and tranquil in deep sleep.              Ping!             She twitched again, this time rolling onto her side, unconsciously ignoring the alarm to get up.                Ping! Her eyes opened, yet darkness remain...

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“The Last King” by Rudy Senecal

Submitted to Contest #218

The Ascension bells had rung three times in my life, once when I was a young boy, again when I was not much older than the first, and finally today. My head bowed as I listened. The masses around me were driven to silence as the bong, bong, bong continued. My fingers coiled around my other hand and I winced, I tried not to, but I was ashamed. The noise frightened me, as it did the small child I heard crying somewhere in the chamber. My queens hand rested on my shoulder. Her soft voice came to me like the distant spot of a light house in a ha...

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“What's at Stake” by D. Grimes

Submitted to Contest #218

[TW: body horror, death]You crush fresh marjoram between your fingers and roll the piney, citrusy oils into your skin, before dropping the herbs into a mug. Another pinch goes into the simmering groats. You continue stirring, unbothered, even though you should be. There are no fat drippings to add. No mustard or mushrooms or meats. Marjoram is one of the only luxuries left that you have, because you grow it yourself. Or maybe, it’s the only thing you have left at all.Your mother grew medicinal herbs in the kitchen window. She’d snip off spri...

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“The Breath” by Jed Cope

Submitted to Contest #218

It’s the smell that hits you. That’s the thing that gets you first. You know you’ve found it when that smell comes from out of nowhere and batters you with an eye watering, full frontal assault.  I’d found my way to the coast and I was transported back to my childhood as I spotted the sea. I saw it first. That was the game. Whoever saw it first was the winner. My memory-journey to happier times was complete as the aroma of the sea gently teased my nose, urging me to smile in the exact same way that I had when I was a little boy. There...

2 comments 2
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“Sea” by Maria Adamkiewicz

Submitted to Contest #218

I keep coming back to the sea. A scream comes but I push it back. I would drown in it if I didn’t. I hear waves crashing against the shore. Their uneasy whisper as they bend and break again and again, and again. I feel their icy breath on my skin on my way to work. I scan the products one by one, thankful for the hypnotizing “beep, beep, beep”, allowing me to switch off my mind and wander back to the time when everything was simpler and happy, and so much more beautiful. Warm sand beneath my feet. Sweet kisses against my lips. A steady han...

4 comments 4
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“To Live in a Body” by Sol Le Roux

Submitted to Contest #218

She felt a tingling, so subtle at first that she didn’t know it was there until a finger was twitching from it, unable to stay still anymore. The finger started brushing past another, bringing warmth and a tiny bit of static. It was so nice, this contact of skin, she wanted the feeling to never stop. She wanted to touch every inch, every surface, every mounts and crevisses of this new body that she was experimenting for the first time. Hair was the most interesting thing. She’d seen hair before, in all sizes, shapes and colors. But to touch ...

2 comments 2
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“THE COIN” by Sam Delainey

Submitted to Contest #218

THE COIN TINK, CLINK, CLINKETY – CLINK. The coin had flipped end over end, showing dull glints on its tarnished sides as it spun in the dusty air. Eyes had watched the spinning coin, eyes wide in the near dark space and a sibilance of indrawn breaths was the only sound to be heard as it spun. Then slowly, the spinning dwindled and the coin had made its inextricable way down, down to the surface of the table below waiting to catch it. Now, spinning on the table, the coin clinked and chinked on the metalic surface, sounding like a tiny ...

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“If This Monster Doesn't Kill You” by Nolan Fluke

Submitted to Contest #218

The sounds of the fireplace slowly died and Lyla began to hear her grandfather’s cabin come to life. Without the crackling of the flames, she heard the creaking of the old wooden structure as the wind outside relentlessly pounded against it. With every gust, the walls whined, giving the impression that soon the roof would peel off and expose her to the elements. She was alone, it was getting dark, and she was terrified.  Lyla’s grandfather had built the cabin when he had first arrived in Canada as a young man. He raised her mother in...

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“Zara & Mia: The necklace” by Daisa Barbour

Submitted to Contest #218

Metallic. Pungent. Sweet. Vile.A heavy, festering scent was wafting in the raw acrid air. It was a scent I knew all too well—a scent I knew with experience. Death was near. Someone, or something, died here. I covered my nose before inhaling again, all the odors mixing and hitting the back of my throat. Usually the smell gave me motivation—reason—but this time, all I felt was dread.I tried not to gag and at the same time wanted to scream. The scream was pulling at my vocal cords, praying to be unleashed.Please let it not be so. Please let it ...

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“There is a Ceiling Fan Spinning” by Jeffery Young

Submitted to Contest #218

Mold and mildew hung like a pungent fog, invading my seared nostrils. Fluffy carpet cushioned my bruised feet. A flash flickered across the room, throwing white light across a painting, a bed, and the man in the mirror. The sky erupted in chase, briefly drowning out the swirling hum of the fan. It was warm. A cool breeze tickled my wet cheeks. Rain streaked violently across darkened window panes. It’d be a great summer night, ripe for a hard night’s sleep, if it had been any other man standing there beneath the ceiling fan. I climbed atop a ...

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