Set your story before dawn. Your character has woken up early for a particular reason.

Posted in Fiction on Nov 10, 2023

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✍️ 94 stories

“Old Man Buckhart” by David Sweet

Submitted to Contest #224

The mugginess of night receded. A thin veil of blushing daylight clung to dark ridge tops under weakening clouds. A swift storm had moved through a few hours before. In its wake, soft gray shrouds rose among the hollows to greet the gathering dawn like resurrected spirits from some ancient sepulcher, accentuated by the ghostly refrains of an L&N steam engine pulling through nearby London, Kentucky. Lefty lay awake most of the night, mesmerized by the lightning but also lulled to drowsiness from time to time by the rain on the tin roof ...

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“That Last Little Piece of Straw” by Aeris Walker

Submitted to Contest #224

I open my eyes to sunlight trickling through the curtains and my little sisters standing in my bedroom doorway. “Mama says you got to wake up. The fire’s going out.”I groan and stumble into a pair of long johns, then head into the living room. Ma is crouched by the woodstove, poking at the dying fire and muttering something under her breath about me getting enough beauty sleep. Both girls are running in circles chanting a nursery rhyme until Kate stops and presses her doll’s face to Ma’s ear, making it pretend to talk in a singsong voice. “M...

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“Major M.K. Grayson V.C.” by Chris Miller

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #224

“Wake up, Sarge. It’s half-past-four.” Catherine walked away from me across the village green. It was a Sunday in May and we had nothing to do. Swallows cut the clean spring air into cloudless curves. She was carrying her shoes. She looked back at me and opened her mouth to say something. “Sarge! Wake up. It’s half-past-four.” “Thank you, Grayson,” I said, stretching a hand out from my cocoon of grey wool to take back my watch. Grayson was a black shape in the burrow of the dugout. The tiny stove gave off just enough light to ma...

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“All the Angels, Singing to Me” by Delbert Griffith

Submitted to Contest #224

I stare at the alarm clock. It’s a superfluous thing in my life. I never use it as an alarm clock because I’m always awake before it activates. 3:27 am. I wait and watch. The minutes feel like decades. I wonder – and I do this every morning – why a minute feels like an eon. I won’t get out of bed until it reads 3:30. For some reason, it feels like a sin to be up before 3:30. The clock hits the magical moment and I get out of bed. Sometimes I have an adrenalin rush when I do this, and no coffee is needed, though I still drink unbelievable amo...

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“Dad Errands” by Audrey Knox

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #224

These days as an adult, I cannot even convince myself to get out of bed unless I know there is coffee waiting for me. When I go on vacations, I set my alarm by the time the nearest coffee shop to me opens, and I still end up sleeping much later than that because it’s still so far away and how am I supposed to shower, get dressed, dry my hair, and do my makeup without caffeine? I can’t get out of bed without it. Despite all this, I still consider myself a Morning Person. The 5-9am hours are when I am the most productive—as long as that pro...

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“By The Rising Morning Light” by Sol Caine

Submitted to Contest #224

“Today, we die! So, curtail any ambition of living – if you want to survive!”That inspirational declaration by the imposing battle-hardened centurion, caused several groans to escape amongst my line of cohorts.We had been roused just before the break of dawn to prepare to attack our enemy’s position. Word around camp was that the General had been visited by the gods, informing him the rising sun behind us would gain him a heavenly advantage – as the enemy shielded their eyes from its burning glare.“The general knows what he is doing, doesn’t...

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“A Mourning Time” by Jean Widner

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #224

I lie in a dying man’s bed. Awake before dawn as always, these days. My husband snores quietly beside me. I get up and toss on a sweatshirt and tiptoe downstairs. All is silent in the house. Every day I’ve set this pattern as we all have gathered in the vigil of watching my brother-in-law, die. Mike, or Mikey, as we call him, my husband’s best friend and brother - mine too - is winding down his horrific journey with cancer. At only forty-four, for the past eleven years he has endured a gliosarcoma/astrocytoma brain tumor combo (you want fr...

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“Risks” by Sophie M.

Submitted to Contest #224

I’d woken up at 5:00 am for 374 days ever since my boyfriend Walter left to go overseas. On that day, he’d come over to my house in the morning, right before he’d shipped out to somewhere in Europe for the war, to say goodbye. I’d woken up to pebbles being tossed at my window and rolled over to see the clock on my bedside table ticking its way to the fifth hour in the morning. I never walked anywhere in our drafty house without slippers and a robe on since my mother was always worried about my health, but I did that morning as I looke...

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“Early Bird” by PJ Town

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #224

If a killer awakes before dawn and puts his boots on – to paraphrase a famous song – you know it means trouble. If the killer happens to be the Slough Slasher, then it's ‘Trouble’ with a capital 'T'.No one knows who the Slough Slasher is, naturally. If they did, then they’d call him by name. But the newspapers like to give serial killers a dramatic moniker. I don’t know which paper coined this one – most probably The Sun or some other tabloid – but it soon caught on and now it’s on everyone’s lips.Especially those belonging to the poor resid...

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“Live at the Five Spot” by Marty B

Submitted to Contest #224

Ethan assumed he dreamt the jazz club and the beautiful woman, until he saw the revolver on the floor of the basement. He looked down at his hand, his knuckles scraped and raw, and smiled. It had all started because of the damn gray wall. Earlier that morning, he had stood at the edge of the basement, blinking the sleep away. Four hours only made it worse somehow, his body craved rest. The basement, cluttered with scraps of metal and wood, stank of damp mold, bringing back memories of high school...

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“Back to Bed Now” by Eileen Turner

Submitted to Contest #224

Back to Bed Now Oma was cutting lard into the flour. Oma made the best biscuits. There was only a little bacon frying in the pan on the stove, but the flavor from the fat would become a thick gravy to spread on the biscuits. She had saved up some eggs from the slow laying winter hens and there’d be eggs and biscuits with bacon gravy for breakfast. “Clive,” Grandma pointed the fork she was using toward the pant...

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“Crepuscular” by Louise Rock-West

Submitted to Contest #224

Crepuscular I wake, phone alarm jangling, covered in a sheen of sweat. The jagged edges of a bad dream still keenly felt, but the details fading. I hate sleeping, but somehow it always claims me for a few erratic hours before dawn. I sit up, take a few calming breaths, snatch up my water, turned night-metallic in the glass. I grimace at the taste. Reaching for my running clothes, I dress quickly in the lonely bedroom. A few moments later, I’m out the front door, affixing a wide band over my fringe and pulling the rest into ...

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“There Was a Chainsaw. There Was a Tree.” by Daniel Rogers

Submitted to Contest #224

He set the alarm for 1:30 AM. "If the early bird gets the worm, then the night owl gets a buffet," Barron smirked at his cleverness. His "worm" was over fifty feet tall: Mr. Freeman's oak tree. It stood on the border of their backyards, and he wanted it down. He couldn't say why, just that he did, and tonight was the perfect opportunity with his parents on vacation and the Freemans staying overnight in the city. No one would be around to hear the deed. Beginning two months ago, Barron Abernathy researched how to cut trees down like most ei...

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“The Masked Trumpeter” by Siegfried Pueblitz

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #224

The Masked Trumpeter A cloudless night like this Can set the spirit soaring: ...

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“Our Son” by Andrew Gibbons

Submitted to Contest #224

Content Note: This is a story placed during contemporary times, in a fictional America at war with itself. At its core it’s a family war drama, that being said this story will mention and describe gun/knife violence, and what one would describe as evil actions against men, women, children, elderly and disabled (nothing sexual at all). War crimes, plain and simple. I feel they are necessary when discussing a mature theme like war and how it changes people, how we think of family. My intent was to do so in an artistically necessary and tastefu...

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Set your story before dawn. Your character has woken up early for a particular reason.

Submissions are closed

✍️ 94 stories

“Old Man Buckhart” by David Sweet

“That Last Little Piece of Straw” by Aeris Walker

“Major M.K. Grayson V.C.” by Chris Miller

“All the Angels, Singing to Me” by Delbert Griffith

“Dad Errands” by Audrey Knox

“By The Rising Morning Light” by Sol Caine

“A Mourning Time” by Jean Widner

“Risks” by Sophie M.

“Early Bird” by PJ Town

“Live at the Five Spot” by Marty B

“Back to Bed Now” by Eileen Turner

“Crepuscular” by Louise Rock-West

“There Was a Chainsaw. There Was a Tree.” by Daniel Rogers

“The Masked Trumpeter” by Siegfried Pueblitz

“Our Son” by Andrew Gibbons

🌟 Similar prompts

Write a story about two people living together who have opposing sleep cycles, and only cross paths at dawn and dusk.

Start your story with someone saying “I can’t sleep.”

Write a story about someone pulling an all nighter.

Write about someone who can’t sleep due to jet lag, and decides to set out and explore their new city at night instead.

Contest #224

Enter our weekly contest!

$250

Prize money

285

Contest entries

135

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

Explore more writing prompt ideas: