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

“The Wishing Pyre” by Jack Brooks

Submitted to Contest #224

The development of one’s lifetime personality and behaviour is predominantly shaped in their childhood through events largely out of their control- the core belief of Freud’s theory of psychosexual development. The towering sycamore was awoken at first light, this day as all others since before it could remember. As for what it could remember, it recalled the learning that a morn’s new light meant a new day. It summoned the crowing of the cockerels and the stirring of the animals and automatons from their slumbers. The sycamore coul...

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“Chasing the Dawn” by Crosby Bingaman

Submitted to Contest #224

The cabin alarm buzzed gratingly, burrowing its way into my subconscious and roused me from the depths of slumber. I had been dreaming of holding you in my arms, feeling the warmth of your body against mine as we danced together on a gravel road, “Cheek to Cheek” by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong playing from our van speakers.I rolled over in the full-size bed to shut off the alarm. The alarm read, “5:00 AM”. Sighing sleepily, I sat up and rubbed away the gunky evidence of my rest that had built up in the corners of my eyes. I stood up ...

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“Fat Town” by Don Tucker

Submitted to Contest #224

I could still hear my leg groaning and barking at me, it felt like pieces of my femur were rubbing against each other, spurting off bone shavings into the nether regions of my body. It sounded like an old screen door at a beach house, withered away from years of salty air. According to the latest X-Ray, I was fully healed. Good to go was the term Dr. Thibodeau used. I asked him are you sure? He said yes. I asked for another X-Ray and he said no. I asked him to recommend another doctor and he told me to get out. &...

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“For Love of Unforgotten Times” by Kathleen Capacci

Submitted to Contest #224

*Trigger warning-death* I woke up with the pager screaming on my bedside table. Lifting my head, I glanced at the clock while I reached for it. “4 am, so close.” I groaned. Sitting up, I rubbed my eyes, read the number and called back to the answering service. “Hi, this is Mary Murphy, RN on call, what’s the message about?” “We have a phone call from Lizzy Schmidt, daughter of Sarah Schmidt, your patient.” I turned on a side light, thumbed through my on-call notebook, quickly finding Sarah’s file. “Thanks, I have the number, I’ll c...

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“Time and Solitude” by Jeff M.

Submitted to Contest #224

He reached for the nightstand before he had fully departed from the dream, frantic to silence the blaring alarm. With eyes closed, his hand wandered the darkness until it grasped the device. Squeezing every button recognizable by touch. The synthetic noise of a camera shutter marked the addition of yet another addition to his collection of attempted snoozes. 0505 in military time; otherwise known as 5:05 a.m. Did he have this one already or was it a duplicate? At one point in time, he had the complete set of 0400 to 0700 in five-minute incre...

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“It's Not a Good Time to be Alive” by Laura Huffman

Submitted to Contest #224

Before the light of day a blinding flash of electrifying lightning bolted across the tar black sky like fireworks and lit up a second-floor bedroom where Wilma was rolling a dead man into a shitty smelling blanket soaked with urine. As a gust of wind and a downpour of heavy rain battered the windowpanes the lights flickered in the unheated mansion and went out. Cursing the dark, Wilma blindly dragged the guy across the bedroom floor, down the dark hallway to a ...

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“Early to Rise” by Sean Packard

Submitted to Contest #224

A gray reef fans on the edge of the eastern horizon. Cobalt blue mixed with midnight. An hour until the first fingers of sunlight. An hour back I quit twisting in the bed sheets. Wouldn’t do any good to fall asleep at 4am. Four is a time to relieve yourself and duck back under the covers for another REM cycle before the world starts calling. That’s for the people who can sleep. For those that can’t, it’s a time to surrender and roll outta there. I don’t sleep much lately. You, only when the med...

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“My Whole Life and Some of His” by James Harris

Submitted to Contest #224

I’m a rat. I’m hungry. And it’s dark. I woke up for the first time before dawn, which has now become a common occurrence. It was probably one of the darkest mornings I’ve ever experienced. I can barely see my brothers and sisters right next to me, let alone my surroundings. I struggle to latch onto a teat because my siblings are so much bigger than me. But I’m hungry. I finally squeeze my way through and start sucking but my mother moves away. It wasn’t clear to me at the time, but she didn’t want me. And because she didn’t want me, neither ...

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“I Can't Sleep” by Judy Alexander

Submitted to Contest #224

(This story contains sensitive subject matter. It deals with the current war going on between Israel and Hamas. There is not explicit violence but it does talk about what Hamas did on October 7) I can’t sleep. It’s not all that unusual for me. When I turned sixty-six five years ago my sleep patterns changed and insomnia set in. Most nights I count backward from 200 and generally get back to sleep. But tonight felt different. I just felt something wasn’t right. Maybe it was nerves–I was trying to memorize my lines for a play I was recently ca...

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“Do You Know What I Mean? ” by Maria Bray

Submitted to Contest #224

I’m having my first cup of coffee at the absolutely ridiculous hour of 2:20 a.m. At 42, which might be the meaning of life, but a shit age to be female, my body went completely rogue on me. I gained 40 pounds in the course of three months; my circadian clock decided that anywhere from midnight to 3 a.m. were perfectly appropriate times to say, “Wakey-wakey, eggs and bakey.” Quite enthusiastically at that. But at 46 now, I'm used to it in a weird way. I don't curse about much anymore at least. The husband tells me, “Just go back to slee...

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“She Died” by Donna Triplett

Submitted to Contest #224

SHE DIED By Donna Y. Triplett This story contains substance abuse, sex, violence. Gasping into wakefulness, this nightmare that had become her reality began again. The never-ending cycle repeating itself over and over, spinning out of control. She had tried countless times to escape her corner of hell, only to find herself being sucked back into it. In her lucid moments, she’d often ask herself, “Why?” The answer was always the same, “Because I really don’t want to leave.” Pushing herself to her feet, in an unsteady gait she shuff...

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“Smoothing Wrinkles In The Dark” by Asa P

Submitted to Contest #224

Somewhere in or near Seoul circa 2011“There are others who are sleeping in this room.” Mr. A called from the doorway. Without asking what he was talking about, I ceased my grunting and teeth grinding. It took some effort on my part as I struggled to hold my jaws apart. Like many things in my short but rather intense life of 15 or 16 years, depending on the aging system used, it was an unconscious quirk. I folded my two blankets, one to lay on on the spartan room’s floor and the other to cover my exhausted body during my brief sweat-dren...

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“A Dog's Thoughts” by Chris Baum

Submitted to Contest #224

It was 4 AM. I couldn’t sleep. My mind was racing after a vivid dream of which I could remember only fragments. Everyone else was asleep—my wife, the kids and the dog. Normally we all got up at 5:30 on the weekdays since we lived way out in cow country but today was Saturday. No alarms were set on the weekends. I didn’t want a headache and knew I would get one if I even tried to stay in bed. So, I quietly crept downstairs and got some cold water from the fridge to coat my somewhat dry throat and got the coffee brewing. When I sat down in t...

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“The Darkness is Light” by Jennifer Stowell

Submitted to Contest #224

Euphoria, such a genius word to describe the type of happiness most people strive to attain. I am one of the lucky ones who experiences it daily. It would not seem so while waking up before dawn, the outside world still dark and quiet. There are parts of my day which do not seem very euphoric, especially when I first meet new people, but it never takes long for others to see why my job is better than it seems. Two years have passed since I began this job and journey. I can’t say I technically asked to do this, but when you’re specifically ...

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“The Stranger's Thanksgiving” by Dhruv Srivastava

Submitted to Contest #224

The orange and purple of the faintest glimpse of twilight had only just begun to creep over the eastern sky outside my window when I awoke. Truly, a magical thing. It’s as though God, the great painter of the world, has made a yellowish brushstroke just at the flat plain at the edge of the world, blending it in with the inky blackness of the pure night sky with a single masterful swipe. You’d think I was weird, of course, if I told you that I awoke this early of my own volition, on Sunday of all days. In fact, I set my alarm this earl...

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

Submissions are closed

✍️ 94 stories

“The Wishing Pyre” by Jack Brooks

“Chasing the Dawn” by Crosby Bingaman

“Fat Town” by Don Tucker

“For Love of Unforgotten Times” by Kathleen Capacci

“Time and Solitude” by Jeff M.

“It's Not a Good Time to be Alive” by Laura Huffman

“Early to Rise” by Sean Packard

“My Whole Life and Some of His” by James Harris

“I Can't Sleep” by Judy Alexander

“Do You Know What I Mean? ” by Maria Bray

“She Died” by Donna Triplett

“Smoothing Wrinkles In The Dark” by Asa P

“A Dog's Thoughts” by Chris Baum

“The Darkness is Light” by Jennifer Stowell

“The Stranger's Thanksgiving” by Dhruv Srivastava

🌟 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: