Start your story with an ending and work backward toward the beginning.

Posted in Fiction on Oct 25, 2022

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✍️ 201 stories

“A Good Death” by Valerie June

Submitted to Contest #89

The time has come. I know it when the pain loosens. It’s calming. The monster that possessed me day and night is finally leaving me. A thrilling yet peaceful sensation veils itself over me, dampening my rising excitement. It reminds me of the mask they wound around my eyes and mouth, but this sensation’s different than that of the musty cloth. It was a better one. With more hope infused in it.I’m not scared of the way I’m squeezed into an impenetrable darkness by some unknown and invisible force. Instead, it feels like a mother tenderly swad...

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“How Things Ended” by Monica June

Submitted to Contest #89

It ended in silence, as most things do. It all ended in the brutal, stifling nothingness, with no one there to bear witness. Not even the wind dared to howl, for it knew that there would be nothing left to hear it. Before, though, there was a gunshot. Ringing out in the cold stale air, the last thing that anyone ever heard. The cries of that girl. A single girl, laying on the unknown remains of her childhood home, as she realized that she had lost everything she knew. The cries of the last girl on a dying world, her cries, kn...

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“Until Regrets Replace Dreams ” by Christina Reynolds

Submitted to Contest #89

“Happy Birthday to you—” sang the small crowd of familiar faces, clapping and cheering. Teary-eyed, Richard looked around the room with much appreciation at those who were much beloved, those who were tolerated, and those who were somewhere in between. Thank you, he whispered. Someone handed him his youngest grandchild. He held the infant like a practiced father and stepfather and grandfather. Cameras flashed and women ooh-ed and aah-ed. He smiled at his second wife, the one who seemed to bring peace to the valley of the shadow of dea...

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“Tolden Castle” by A Mehendale

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #89

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“I Shouldn’t Have” by Cathryn V

Submitted to Contest #89

The ambulance screamed out of the parking lot, lights flashing and siren wailing, two emergency techs inside worked in tandem, each doing their assigned tasks, hooking up the heart monitor, checking oxygen level, pupil response, starting IV fluid, administering oxygen. The man had a pulse now. He was beginning to pink up. The EMT slipped an O2 mask over the man’s head, dislodging his knit cap, showing full black wavy hair with an unusual patch of white at the temple as if he’d been touched by a dab of white paint. The EMT pulled the cap out ...

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“Ghost Writer” by H L McQuaid

Submitted to Contest #89

The end circles to the beginning, the stars winking in the blue velvet night, the cool grass tickling, the voices whispering, when you stop to listen.I rub the sleep from eyes, annoyed that I must have nodded off again while trying to finish the last chapter of Rosamund’s autobiography. I stare at the words on the screen until the letters float like disembodied apparitions. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve backspaced that sentence into oblivion, and yet here it is again, haunting me. And even worse, I can't figure out why it's infiltrated...

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“Maelstrom ” by Nanzee Addae

Submitted to Contest #89

It was a beautiful night to die. The cart rolled to a jerky stop as the inquisitive crowd pressed in to catch a glimpse of her. Dozens of grimy hands reached in, grasping at her fine cloak and leather breeches. Why they’d let her keep her finery and baubles was a complete mystery to her. Perhaps, they thought it ironic that she would hang along with her stolen riches. Faces from the crowd leered at her. Some spat and shouted profanities. Others were simply grasping for a quick glimpse of her face or a piece of cloth from her coat. Sh...

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“Her” by Erika Crowley

Submitted to Contest #89

The early evening sun descended lower into the dusky sky. With each passing minute, the hazy fog threatened to overtake its final beams. A lone silhouette disrupted nature’s image. The old man took his final, staggering step. Crisp, white roses. Delicately, they glowed in his shaking, rough, callused hands. He bent over with a grunt and laid them to rest. His eyes gazed upon the name he had cherished for years and years. As he turned his back on the grave marker and whispered her name, he could feel it echo in the breeze, eternal. ...

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“The Ruby Redhead” by Rachel Loughran

Submitted to Contest #89

November 3rd, 1939Ruby Dove Found Dead by Hotel StaffRuby Dove, 26, was discovered dead in her room at the Beverly Hills Hotel of an apparent overdose of sleeping pills late Wednesday night. The striking redhead was found in her bed by hotel staff at 9pm. She had been dead an estimated six hours. Her body was taken to County Morgue, where Coroner Bertrand Humphrey said after an autopsy he could give a “presumptive opinion” that death was due to a drug overdose. Several empty Veronal bottles were found amongst her possessions, with presc...

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“Eighteen” by Leslie Strom

Submitted to Contest #89

EighteenI wake up and my head feels like a sludge hammer hit me a thousand times. The lights are so bright, trying to focus is almost impossible with such a bad headache. The weight of my aching body is unbearable trying to move sending waves of dire pain throughout my entire body. I close my eyes and feel so tired, the voices so distant calling me to come back. I’m so tiredThe sounds of people, the beeps of some type of machine become distant. The feeling of someone touching me is almost gone. I look down and see my family all lo...

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“Death Is The Same Forwards And Backwards” by 🄼🄹 🅂

Submitted to Contest #89

Trigger And Content Warning: Graphic Suicide The End “You really did it.” I sobbed, holding her limp body in my arms, blood trickling from the veins on her wrists. “I didn't think she would really do it-” Grace started, but I held up my hand to silence her. I should have seen the signs. I should have realized when her short sleeves turned long. When “I'm just tired,” became the excuse for everything. When her smile didn't reach her eyes. When she stopped hanging out with him in pub...

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“Life and Death” by Rachel Tully

Submitted to Contest #89

It was my body that they pulled out of the river. I saw it with my own eyes. The gray, pasty complexion of my skin looked so unnatural. It made my stomach twist and turn until I was sure I was going to vomit. But nothing came up. There’s no use vomiting when you’re dead. I watch my life in reverse as the police slide my cold corpse back into the river. Time works differently with death. Now, I can see what happened to me. First my head submerges into the depths. Limb by limb my body disappears into the murky green. Finally, my finger...

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“UNENDLESS END” by Opher 51 2022 REYES

Submitted to Contest #89

Completely settled misfortune, leaving stage and page a-floodgate with blood or tears, incites a washed-clean quiet in the peruser, even as it plays devastation with her mascara. Muslin-clad sentiments squashed in embraces on the last page, or chocolate-box secrets tied off with a twist of settling strip, leave me murmuring and loaded. Indeed, even endings forecasting inescapable continuations, wherein a crucial hero or mission object presently can't seem to be liberated or discovered (YA sets of three, I'm seeing you) can expand my feeling ...

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“The Last Nine Minutes” by Tori Routsong

Submitted to Contest #89

The last second of Cassie Maclay’s life was cold, but filled with wonder. The sky was gorgeous, painted in the hues of the residual sunset that hadn’t heard the news that the sun had already imploded, or vanished, or whatever had happened, and she held her baby brother’s forearm with a sort of anxious delight. It was inevitable, as inevitable as the movements of the stars. What was there to be done? She barely understood how the sun works, much less how she could get it to pop back into existence. Astronomy was beautiful, sure, but utterly i...

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“The Winter Blues That Made Neema” by Kendi Karimi

Submitted to Contest #89

Standing there, Neema had never been more grateful for her name. Neema is a Swahili word that means grace, and if she was a Hindu, she’d be kneeling, thanking Vishu for saving her life. But what about Njenga and Kagz? What in not her God’s name was she going to do about the bodies? DECEMBER April was a girl that liked to flirt online. Neema was the classic chic tomboy. But, as April Neema on her ID card, she was a girl born in Nkubu, a small village in Meru, Kenya. Her Meru was awful to say the least, and that is what Kagz saw as the cut...

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Start your story with an ending and work backward toward the beginning.

Submissions are closed

✍️ 201 stories

“A Good Death” by Valerie June

“How Things Ended” by Monica June

“Until Regrets Replace Dreams ” by Christina Reynolds

“Tolden Castle” by A Mehendale

“I Shouldn’t Have” by Cathryn V

“Ghost Writer” by H L McQuaid

“Maelstrom ” by Nanzee Addae

“Her” by Erika Crowley

“The Ruby Redhead” by Rachel Loughran

“Eighteen” by Leslie Strom

“Death Is The Same Forwards And Backwards” by 🄼🄹 🅂

“Life and Death” by Rachel Tully

“UNENDLESS END” by Opher 51 2022 REYES

“The Last Nine Minutes” by Tori Routsong

“The Winter Blues That Made Neema” by Kendi Karimi

🌟 Similar prompts

Write a story that spans a month during which everything changes.

Start your story with a character taking a leap of faith.

Write a story where one person is trying to say goodbye but keeps getting interrupted.

Write about someone who is always looking toward the future.

Contest #89

Enter our weekly contest!

$50

Prize money

719

Contest entries

0

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

Explore more writing prompt ideas: