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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write about a character who has to rely on the hospitality of strangers.

Posted in Fluff on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 97 stories

“Intimate Strangers” by Julia Abelsohn

Submitted to Contest #96

The weather warning came in the morning when I was preparing to drive into the city, so at the last minute, I decided to take the bus. It wasn’t my idea, but my friend Pearl was very persuasive.  “Buses are slower but they are safer when there’s snow because their visibility is so much better,” Pearl encouraged. “I don’t like the thought of you white-knuckling it down the highway for hours.”  I didn’t much like that idea either but the thought of travelling on a crowded bus, inching its way through every small town on the way t...

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“Life Decisions” by Denise Ervin

Submitted to Contest #96

The eager young man fidgeted in his seat as he vacillated between wanting to hear about his new life and not wanting to give up his old one. The angel who had brought him to this place informed him that his journey from unborn soul to the son of two loving parents was about to begin.            A large screen seemed to appear out of nowhere. There was no projector and certainly no television, leaving the spirit to wonder exactly how he would view the life that was set before hi...

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“MEETING ” by John Del Rio

Submitted to Contest #96

MEETING Fitz had never seen Teague so full of fury. It was completely understandable. He himself would have been quite wroth if someone had abducted his own dear mother. The big man watched Teague as the enterprise trouble shooter paced restlessly back and forth, as though it was his intention to wear a hole in the expensive carpeting. He noted that the pacing man was dressed in a manner, very unlike his normal attire. He was wearing heavy canvas pants and a jacket made of the same durable material. The jacket had a very high collar...

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“The Kindness of a Stranger” by Sarah McBroom

Submitted to Contest #96

  Joe was riding the train to visit his parents with his friend Sam. It was the Great Depression and people would hop aboard box cars to ride across the country for free. It was a great way to travel if no one caught on. On this particular night, the train stopped in the small town of Blair, Iowa, about 300 miles from their destination of Raintree, MI. The train stopped because of a broken track, and so it was going to be two to three days before the train would be moving. People began to move off of the tr...

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“The Short Straw” by Laurence Tryon

Submitted to Contest #96

14 July 1811 Noon Between Hachette and Landrecies     The man woke up groggy, his face in the mud a few inches from the edge of the river. He sat up, seeing stars, a dizzying pain exploding in the back of his skull. He gingerly touched the area of pain and found an impressive goose egg, sticky with half-dried blood. He got up, one hand on a tree trunk to steady himself. His legs were wobbly causing him to lean back against the tree to brush grass and twigs off his clothes. Of the felt purse that used to hang from his be...

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“The Runaway” by Caroline Eddy

Submitted to Contest #96

The two men seemed safe. No one was harmless, not entirely. Henry knew better than that, but Caleb and Angel were normal? Caleb wasn’t the first person to ask him if he was alright, if he needed help or food or a drink, maybe a bed. He was getting better at deciding who could help him and who couldn’t. Who was safe, who could be trusted for a little while, and who looked like they would expect something from him in return. Those people who looked straight through him. Caleb didn’t seem to expect anything from him. He didn’t ask a lot of q...

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“The Spectacle Of Mr. Morgan” by Joshua Packard

Submitted to Contest #96

I stood on the old concrete bridge above the highway, and took in the sunset with particular enjoyment. The events of the past week had been fraught with boredom and school constantly sheltered me from the nature outside. A calm walk on a Friday evening, seemed then, to be a fair reward for my efforts in school. The bridge spread in conjunction with the Greenway trail--a popular, albeit easy, path which stretched along the outskirts of town. At the time of my walking there, it was a common sight to see the numerous cherry blossoms bloom in a...

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“19th Century Madam at Starbucks” by Jane Matthias

Submitted to Contest #96

Anais woke up in a dumpster, her crinoline skirts spread around her and a rotting banana peel entangled in her bouffant updo. She lay there in a particularly repugnant heap of trash, looking up towards the heavens and squinting in confusion while sunlight very nearly blinded her.“Where am I?” she asked her self, finally sitting up right.She looked all around her, scrunching up her bushy eyebrows. She picked up an empty Starbucks coffee cup right next to her and inspected its logo. One thing was for sure; she certainly was not in Victori...

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“Clueless Caper” by Diane Murray

Submitted to Contest #96

Dirk was dropped off just outside of Kansas city. He dusted off his sport coat and straightened his tie realizing the clothes he wore were his first mistake. "Hey mister need a ride?" a farmer yelled over the roar of the tractor engine."two more swipes and I'll come back for you." Dirk nodded and found a dry place to sit along a fence. "Why the hell did I apply to the U Protection Force?" he asked himself. The "interview" if you want to call it that is being dropped off in parts unknown to the applicant and having to survive with no money ph...

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“Shipwrecked!” by Ruth Smith

Submitted to Contest #96

As the fog cleared in her brain, Margaret realized she was still alive, laying face down in wet sand on a shoreline of some kind. How did she get here and where on Earth is “here”? She pushed herself up off of the ground onto her hands and knees, spitting the dirt and sand out of her mouth. From there, she got up shakily and glanced around. Still wiping the sand off of her face, Margaret could barely make out her surroundings in the dark. Maybe off to her side was some debris that had washed ashore along with her. She stumbled towards the wo...

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“Finding Family” by Jonathan Braunstein

Submitted to Contest #96

Dear Diary…Today, as I sat on a comfortable sofa with a soft cozy blanket, I once again realized how lucky I am. Life wasn’t always this way for me. It’s difficult to determine whether I have adopted my family or if they have adopted me. Perhaps we mutually decided. I never imagined my life would turn out this way.When I was very young I was placed into ‘the system’ for adoption with my two brothers. I never knew my father, and I don’t really know what happened to my mother. I have a few vague memories of her, but I was very young when I was...

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“The Birthing” by Anna LaBruyerr

Submitted to Contest #96

“What’s taking you so long, Lees?!” “I’m coming! I just had to… Oh, lord! It’s coming already?” “No, Leesa, it’s not coming. It’s here!” She practically threw the horse blankets at Trey. “This is all I could find. Do we have any idea who she is yet? Or how she ended up here of all places?” Kneeling into the straw Leesa gathered some and placed it into one of the unfolded blankets. Trey lifted the slippery mass of bloody and white gunk covered flesh out of the straw at the nameless woman’s ankles and placed it gently into the hastily prepared...

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“This Is How I Died” by May Bhank

Submitted to Contest #96

Content Warning: graphic violence close to the end of the storySix hours before Chalisa was murdered.It was the fourth time Chalisa looked at the clock in the last two minutes. She finished her test and she just wanted to go home. It was the last day of high school afterall. Her eighteen birthday is coming up in July then heading out to college right after that.Tick, tick, tick.Five more secondsTick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Ding!Chalisa got out of her class the moment that five seconds ended. She headed out without saying goodbye to anyone t...

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“Curse Carriers” by Liz Redt

Submitted to Contest #96

“Make it Stop, Please Make It Stop” screamed Rei the voices in her head sliced through her giving her a pounding headache. Voices came barreling into her mind, powerless to stop themRei thrashed as another tidal wave of voices crashed through her mind.What sickness is this... what have they done to me!Then voices from the other rooms."No, I fell off the trampoline.""I don’t want to do the surgery, don't make me, please."Something awoke inside of her whispering the answer, the answer to make it all stop. Rei hissed something in a swishy tongu...

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“Human nature” by Juan Diego Gallego

Submitted to Contest #96

My name is Xavier Klayens. I am a German writer and a renowned historian on a mission to write a chronicle of the first interplanetary conflict in which the human race was involved. This could get me in trouble. But it seems to me necessary that everyone know the real reasons that led to the catastrophic war that devastated a third of the population. I do all of this in the hope that we will learn from our mistakes. If this happens, the survivors of this confrontation may have a second chance on earth. On February 4, 2085, a crew of human b...

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🌟 Similar prompts

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Write about someone welcoming a stranger into their home.

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Start your story in an empty guest room.

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